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THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 


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BT 


JAMES  McCOSH,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  D.L. 

President  op  Princeton  College 


Author  op  “Intuitions  of  the  Mind,”  “Laws  of  Discursive 
Thought”  (A  Treatise  on  Logic),  “Emotions,”  &c. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 
1884 


Copyright,  1884,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS. 


TROW'S 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY, 
NEW  YORK. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTORY.  page 

Influence  of  Locke  in  Eighteenth  Century,  .  .  1 

Reaction  in  Middle  of  that  Century,  ...  2 

Need  Now  of  a  Reaction  Against  Kant,  .  .  .  3-6 

OBJECTIONS  TO  HIS  CRITICAL  METHOD,  .  .  .  6-12 


OBJECTIONS  TO  HIS  PHENOMENAL  THEORY  OF  KNOW¬ 


LEDGE,  . .  .  .  .  12-18 

OBJECTIONS  TO  HIS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  MIND  IMPOS¬ 
ING  FORMS  ON  OBJECTS,  . . 19-25 

KANT’S  TRANSCENDENTAL  AESTHETIC,  ....  26-31 

Self-Consciousness, . 26-27 

Space  and  Time, . 27-31 

HIS  TRANSCENDENTAL  ANALYTIC,  ....  31-37 

His  Categories, . 32-36 

HIS  TRANSCENDENTAL  DIALECTIC,  ....  37-43 

The  Ideas  of  Pure  Reason, . 38 

Substance,  Paralogisms,  . 39 

Interdependence,  Antinomies, . 40-42 

God,  The  Theistic  Arguments, . 42-43 


IV 


CONTENTS. 


THE  PRACTICAL  REASON,  . 43-46 

The  Categorical  Imperative,  Immortality  and  God,  .  43 

KRITIK  OF  THE  JUDGING  FACULTY,  ....  46-47 

COMPARISON  WITH  SCOTTISH  SCHOOL,  .  .  .  47-50 

What  View  Should  be  Taken  by  British  and  American 
Youth, . 50-52 

HIS  IDEALISM, . 53-55 

HIS  AGNOSTICISM, . 55 

Back  to  Kant, . 56-58 

Taking  What  is  Good  in  our  Higher  Philosophies,  .  58-60 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE,  -i 


O 


4/ 


*r~Y 

V- , 


V 


In  this  work,  which  is  a  criticism  of  Kant’s  Philosophy, 
there  is  no  need  of  giving  a  detailed  account  of  his  life. 
The  biographies  of  him  are  now  numerous  and  accessible.1 

He  was  born  at  Konigsberg,  in  Eastern  Prussia,  toward 
the  Polish  border,  April  22,  1724.  His  father,  a  saddler, 
was  of  Scotch  descent  from  some  emigrant,  who  had  gone 
over  to  Memel,  probably  from  Forfarshire,  on  the  east 
coast  of  Scotland,  where  I  have  noticed  the  name  Cant 
(changed  in  German  into  Kant),  often  occurring  on  tomb¬ 
stones  in  the  parish  church-yards,  and  in  old  records  some 
of  which  show  that  there  were  Cants  engaged  in  the  work¬ 
ing  of  leather.  His  mother,  whom  he  unfortunately  lost 
at  the  age  of  thirteen,  was  a  woman  of  fervent  piety,  and 
the  family  attended  a  church  where  the  evangelical  faith 
was  preached.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  entered  the  uni¬ 
versity  of  his  native  town,  and  for  six  years  he  was  em¬ 
ployed  in  the  Faculty  of  Arts  and  Sciences  in  going  over 
the  branches  belonging  to  the  Department  of  Philosophy. 
His  father  having  died  in  1746  he  was  thrown  on  his  own 
resources,  and  had  a  hard  enough  struggle.  For  a  time 
he  was  tutor  in  a  private  family  and  from  1765  to  1770  he 
was  Privat-Docent  in  the  University  of  Konigsberg,  where 
he  taught  Logic,  Ethics,  and  Physical  Geography,  in  the 
last  of  which  he  always  felt  a  special  interest.  He  early 
showed  a  taste  and  talent  for  mathematics  and  physics,  but 


1  We  have  a  clear  account  of  Kant’s  simple  and  retired  Life  in  Wal¬ 
lace’s  “  Kant,”  in  Philosophic  Classics  ;  a  graphic  account  in  Sterling’s 
lext-Book  to  Kant;  and  a  full  account  in  Stuckenberg’s  Life  of  Im¬ 
manuel  Kant. 


iv 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE.. 


in  the  end  philosophy  became  his  favorite  study.  In  the 
years  from  1160-65  he  became  acquainted  with  the  phi¬ 
losophy  of  Shaftesbury,  Hutcheson,  and  Hume,  and  this 
gave  a  new  turn  to  his  thoughts. 

From  1162  to  1165  he  published  a  number  of  import¬ 
ant  works : — The  false  subtlety  of  the  Four  Syllogistic 
Figures',  An  attempt  to  introduce  into  Philosophy  the 
Conception  of  Negative  Quantities ;  Only  Possible  Argu¬ 
ment  for  demonstrating  God’s  Excellence ;  Observations 
on  the  Feeling  of  the  Beautiful  and  Sublime ;  and  In¬ 
quiry  into  the  Clearness  of  the  Principles  of  Natural 
Theology  and  Morals.  During  this  period  he  anticipated 
Laplace  in  his  famous  theory  of  the  formation  of  worlds 
from  star-dust. 

In  1110  he  was  made  full  professor,  with  a  salary  in  the 
end  of  about  a  hundred  pounds  sterling,  and  henceforth  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  teaching  of  logic  and  metaphysics, 
and  the  construction  of  his  philosophic  system.  His  in¬ 
troductory  lecture  was  on  The  Form  and  Principles  of 
the  Sense  World ,  and  the  World  Intellectual.  In  1181, 
at  the  mature  age  of  51,  he  published  his  great  work,  The 
Kritik  of  Pure  Peason ,  in  which  his  avowed  aim  was  a 
search  for  the  proper  method  of  metaphysics.  The  book 
laid  hold  at  once  on  certain  thinking  minds,  and  has  ever 
since  had  a  powerful  influence  on  thought.  A  second  edi¬ 
tion  was  demanded  in  1181,  and  in  it  he  labored  particu¬ 
larly  in  a  new  Preface  to  deliver  his  system  from  misap¬ 
prehensions  and  answer  objections. 

In  1185,  he  published  The  Foundation  for  the  Metar 
physic  of  Ethics ;  and  The  Metaphysical  Rudiments  of 
Natural  Philosophy ;  in  1188,  The  Kritik  of  the  Practical 
Reason ,  and  in  1190  The  Kritik  of  the  Judgment ,  in  his 
old  age,  Religion  within  the  Boundaries  of  Pure  Reason. 

His  biographers  all  describe  his  person  and  his  simple 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 


V 


bachelor  habits.  He  was  scarcely  five  feet  in  height,  and, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  had  a  very  small  brain.  Every 
morning  about  five  minutes  before  five  his  servant  Lampe, 
an  old  soldier,  entered  his  confined  and  darkened  bedroom 
with  the  cry,  “  It  is  time,”  and  his  master  rose  immediately 
and  took  a  cup  of  tea  and  a  pipe  of  tobacco.  Till  seven 
he  prepared  his  lecture  and  delivered  it  between  seven  and 
nine.  For  the  rest  of  the  forenoon  he  gave  himself  to  his 
literary  work,  in  which  he  wrote  laboriously,  and  read  the 
works  he  could  procure  in  that  remote  city.  At  a  quarter 
to  one,  he  called  out,  “  It  is  three  quarters,”  and  sat  down 
to  a  simple  meal  with  a  little  liquor,  and  always  with  a 
few,  from  two  to  six,  invited  guests.  The  dinner,  with 
the  conversation,  which  ranged  over  almost  every  subject 
except  metaphysics,  lasted  till  four,  when  he  went  out  to 
his  constitutional  walk,  still  shown  to  all  who  visit  Konigs- 
berg.  In  this  walk  he  commonly  distributed  alms  to  some 
beggars  who  waited  for  him.  Returning  to  his  room,  he 
revolved  his  philosophy  in  his  mind  till  about  half-past 
nine,  when  he  retired  to  his  couch,  covering  his  head  with 
the  blankets,  and  taking  pains  to  breathe  only  through  his 
nose,  which  he  thought  prolonged  fife. 

In  all  his  writings  he  takes  an  attitude  of  profound  rev¬ 
erence  toward  religion  and  its  fundamental  truths,  of  God, 
good,  and  immortality.  After  the  spirit  of  his  age,  he 
was  a  rationalist,  subjecting  all  the  doctrines  of  religion  to 
the  dictates  of  reason.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  gone  to 
the  worship  of  God  in  any  church.  He  was  annoyed  in 
his  declining  life  by  Fichte,  who  had  been  at  one  time  his 
pupil,  carrying  out  the  principles  which  his  master  had 
laid  down  to  prove  idealism.  As  his  years  advanced  his 
faculties  began  to  decay,  and  he  scarcely  understood  the 
system  which  he  had  so  carefully  elaborated.  He  died 
February  12,  1804. 


A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL 
PHILOSOPHY.1 


Locke  was  the  most  influential  metaphysician  of  last  cen¬ 
tury  ;  Kant  is  the  most  influential  metaphysician  of  this. 

Locke’s  great  work,  “An  Essay  on  Human  Understand- 
ing,”  published  in  1690,  came  into  notice  immediately. 
The  age  was  ripe  for  it.  Younger  men,  rejoicing  in  the 
advance  of  physical  science,  were  becoming  wearied  of  the 
logical  forms  of  the  schoolmen  which  had  kept  their  hold 
till  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  of  the  abstract 
metaphysical  discussions  which  still  prevailed  in  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century.  Locke  met  the  want  of  his  age.  His  fresh  ob¬ 
servational  spirit,  his  shrewdness  and  sagacity,  his  independ¬ 
ence,  and  his  very  phraseology,  which  carefully  avoided  all 

1 1  Lad  an  article  in  the  Princeton  Review  Nov.  1878,  entitled  A  Criti¬ 
cism  of  the  Critical  Philosophy.  Prof.  Sidgwick  has  stolen  my  brand 
by  giving  the  same  title  to  his  very  acute  articles  in  Mind,  beginning 
1883.  I  am  quite  willing  that  he  should  use  the  title,  and  I  refer  to 
his  employment  of  it  simply  in  order  to  claim  that  I  have  a  right  to 
my  own  property  which  I  acquired  by  a  prior  possession.  Kant  seems 
to  me  to  have  reached  the  climax  of  his  influence  at  his  centenary  in 
1881.  These  papers  of  Dr.  Sidgwick’s  are  an  indication  that  Kant 
will  now  have  to  undergo  a  searching  criticism,  such  as  Locke  was 
subjected  to,  at  the  end  of  last  century  and  the  beginning  of  this.  It  is 
clear  that  Dr.  Stirling  is  about  to  start  a  rebellion  against  Kant  in 
favor  of  realism.  I  may  be  allowed  to  express  a  hope  that  Dr.  Sidg¬ 
wick  and  his  friend  Mr.  Balfour  having  filled  the  air  with  doubts 
and  difficulties,  will  now  show  as  much  acuteness  in  defending  truth 
as  they  have  done  in  opposing  error.  Unless  they  do  so  the  tendency 
of  their  philosophy,  following  the  spirit  of  the  times,  will  be  toward 
an  agnosticism  which  they  do  not  mean  to  support. 


2  A  CKITICISM  OF  THE  CEITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


hack  and  technical  phrases,  recommended  him  to  the  rising 
generation.  He  called  attention  to  internal  facts,  even  as 
Bacon  and  Newton  had  to  external;  and  if  he  did  not 
himself  notice  and  unfold  all  the  delicate  operations  of  our 
wondrous  nature,  he  showed  men  where  to  find  them.  But 
philosophy,  like  faith — as  the  great  Teacher  said,  like  phys¬ 
ical  science — as  Bacon  showed,  is  to  be  tried  by  (not  valued 
for)  its  fruits.  The  influence  exerted  by  him  has  been  and 
is  of  a  healthy  character.  But  there  were  serious  over¬ 
sights  and  even  fatal  errors  in  his  principles;  and  these 
came  out  to  view  in  the  systems  which  claimed  to  proceed 
from  him — in  the  sensationalism  of  Condillac,  the  idealism 
of  Berkeley,  and  the  scepticism  of  Hume. 

By  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  thought¬ 
ful  minds  began  to  see  the  need  of  a  reaction  against  the 
extreme  experientialism  which  had  culminated  in  the  Scot¬ 
tish  sceptic ;  and  there  appeared  two  great  defenders  of 
fundamental  truth — Beid  in  Scotland  (1764)  reaching  in 
his  influence  over  his  own  country,  over  France,  and  over 
the  United  States ;  and  Kant  in  Germany  (1781)  laying 
firm  hold  of  his  own  land,  and  then  passing  over  into 
France,  Britain,  and  America,  and  latterly  penetrating  into 
Scandinavia,  Greece,  Italy,  and  Spain.  Kant’s  power,  like 
Locke’s,  has  been  on  the  whole  for  good.  He  has  estab¬ 
lished  fundamental  mental  and  moral  principles,  which  are 
seen  to  be  fixed  forever.  He  has  taken  us  up  into  a  region 
of  grand  ideals,  where  poetry,  led  by  Schiller  and  Goethe, 
has  revelled  ever  since.  But  there  were  mistakes  in  the 
philosophy  of  Kant  as  well  as  in  that  of  Locke.  These 
have  come  out  like  the  dark  shadow  of  an  eclipse  in  the 
idealism_  of  Fichte,  the  speculative  web  woven  by  Hegel, 
and  in  the  relativity  ancT  nescience  theories  elaborated  by 
f£amilton  and  applied  by  Hgrbert.  .Spencer.  Our  errors  as 
well  as  our  sins  wdll  find  us  out.  Providence  allows  specu- 


LOCKE  AND  KANT. 


3 


a  lative  mistakes  to  go  on  to  a  reduciio  ad  dbsurdum ,  and 
t  the  exposure  corrects  them.  There  is  need  of  a  rebellion 

i  against  Kaut’j?  despotic  authority;  or  rather  of  a  candid  and 

careful  examination  of  his  peculiar  tenets,  with  the  view 
of  retaining  what  is  true  and  expelling  what  is  false.  This 
is  the  more  needed,  as  all  the  agnostics  and  the  materialistic 
psychologists  when  pushed  fall  back  on  Kant.  Prof.  Ma- 
haffy  acknowledges,1  “Of  late  the  Darwinists,  the  great 
apostles  of  positivism,  and  the  deadly  enemies  of  metaphys¬ 
ics,  have  declared  that  he  alone  of  the  philosophers  is 
worthy  of  study,  and  to  him  alone  was  vouchsafed  a  fore- 
h  glimpse  of  true  science.”  I  believe  that  we  can  not  meet 
the  prevailing  doctrine  of  agnostics  till  we  expel  Kant’s 
nescient  theory  of  knowledge,  and  that  it  is  as  necessary  in 
this  century  to  be  rid  of  the  Forms  of  Kant  as  it  was  in 
the  last  of  the  Ideas  of  Locke,  both  being  officious  inter¬ 
meddlers,  coming  between  us  and  things. 

I  wish  it  to  he  understood  that  I  do  not  mean  to  dispar¬ 
age  the  great  German  metaphysician.  I  place  him  on  the 
same  high  level  as  Plato  and  Aristotle  in  ancient  times,  and 
as  Bacon  and  Descartes,  Locke  and  Leibnitz,  Reid  and 
Hamilton  in  modern  times.  His  logical  power  of  ordination 


1 1  may  mention  that  in  an  article  in  the  Princeton  Review  for  Janu¬ 
ary,  1878,  I  ventured  on  a  short  criticism  of  Kant.  It  was  meant  to 
be  a  challenge.  It  called  forth  an  able  champion  in  Prof.  Mahaffy, 
who  wrote  a  criticism  in  the  same  Review  for  July,  1878,  to  which  I 
replied  in  an  article  for  November,  1878,  referred  to  in  last  note.  I 
am  not  to  carry  on  the  controversy  in  this  paper,  hut  I  may  occasion¬ 
ally  use  the  remarks  I  then  made.  Dr.  Mahaffy  has  studied  Kant  pro¬ 
foundly,  and  has  written  valuable  fragmentary  volumes  which  I  hope 
he  may  complete,  and  thus  give  us  fully  his  view  of  the  Critical 
Philosophy.  The  University  of  Dublin,  of  which  he  is  so  distin¬ 
guished  a  membef,  having  for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  followed 
Locke,  seems  in  this  last  age  to  have  gone  over  to  Locke’s  great  rival, 
Immanuel  Kant. 


4  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


and  division  is  not  surpassed  by  that  of  Saint  Thomas,  the 
Angelical  Doctor,  or  the  greatest  of  the  schoolmen.  He 
did  immeasurable  good  by  counteracting  the  sensationalism 
which  was  coming  in  like  a  flood  in  France  under  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  Condillac,  of  Yoltaire,  and  the  encyclopedists. 
He  accomplished  this  in  the  right  manner  (so  far)  by  show¬ 
ing  that  there  are  other  and  deeper  principles  in  the  mind 
than  sensations  and  transformed  sensations.  He  did  a  like 
service  to  philosophy  by  resisting  the  undermining  process 
of  Hume,  who  proposed  to  carry  out  to  its  legitimate  con¬ 
sequences  the  experimental  method  of  Locke,  and  landed 
in  scepticism.  He  effected  this  by  showing  that  there  are 
in  the  mind,'  profound  laws,  _or  forms,  which  are  prior  to 
experience  and  independent  of  it.  He  carries  out  his  prin¬ 
ciples  in  a  proper  way  and  proposes  to  give  us  an  inventory 
of  what  is  d  jpriori  in  the  mind:  “For  this  science  (of 
metaphysics)  is  nothing  more  than  an  inventory  of  all  that 
is  given  by  pure  reason,  systematically  arranged  ”  (First 
Preface).1  These  dicta  of  reason  had  been  appealed  to 
constantly  by  the  school  of  dogmatists,  but  there  had  been 
no  careful  inquiry  into  their  nature,  and  their  mode  of 
operation.  Kant  did  great  good  by  attempting  an  arrange¬ 
ment  of  them — though  I  believe  the  system  which  he  con¬ 
structed  was  far  from  being  successful.  He  introduced 
clearness  and  definiteness  into  metaphysics  by  drawing  the 
famous  distinction — of  which  there  had  been  previously 
only  vague  anticipations — between  analytic  and  synthetic 
judgments,  the  former  simply  evolving  in  the  proposition 
what  is  involved  in  the  subject,  as  when  we  say  that  “  an 
island  is  surrounded  with  water,”  and  the  latter  involving 
something  more,  as  when  we  say,  “  Sicily  is  an  island  in  the 


1  Except  when  stated  otherwise  I  use  Meiklejohn’s  Translation  in 
Bohn’s  Library. 


EXCELLENCES  OE  KANT. 


5 


Mediterranean.”  Farther  on  I  may  have  something  to  say 
about  these  synthetic  judgments ;  but  I  think  he  is  right  in 
maintaining  that  the  problem  of  the  possibility  and  exist¬ 
ence  of  metaphysics  depends  on  the  circumstance  that  there 
is  in  the  mind  a  capacity  of  pronouncing  judgments  em¬ 
bracing  more  than  is  in  the  subject,  and  that  there  are  such 
judgments  a  priori ,  as  that  every  effect  has  a  cause.  His 
classification  in  the  categories  of  the  relations  which  the 
mind  can  discover  is  taken  largely  from  Aristotle  and  the 
scholastic  logicians,  and  contains  a  considerable  amount  of 
truth,  and  should  be  carefully  weighed  by  all  who  would 
construct  a  logic. 

He  has  laid  a  deep  and  immovable  foundation  for  ethics 
in  the  Practical  Reason,  and  his  phrase,  “  the  Categorical 
Imperative,”  has  always  appeared  to  me  to  be  the  most 
expressive  ever  employed  to  designate  the  office  of  the  con¬ 
science.  We  should  also  be  grateful  to  him  for  his  defence 
of  the  freedom  of  the  will.  These  are  only  the  chief  of 
the  high  excellences  which  I  find  in  the  Kantian  philos¬ 
ophy  which  sets  before  youth  a  high  ideal,  intellectual  and 
moral.  The  grand  principles  which  he  has  expounded  and 
defended  must  have  a  place  (it  may  be  a  somewhat  differ¬ 
ent  place  from  that  which  he  has  allotted  to  them)  in  every 
system  of  high  philosophy. 

But,  while  he  has  thus  been  powerfully  promoting  the 
cause  of  truth,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  he  has  given  the 
correct  account  of  fundamental  principles.  Fie  was  more 
distinguished  as  a  logical  thinker  and  systematizer  than  a 
careful  observer  of  what  actually  passes  in  the  mind.  His 
system,  as  a  whole,  seems  to  me  not  to  be  a  natural  one — 
that  is,  according  to  nature — but  an  artificial  one,  con¬ 
structed  by  a  powerful  intellect.  He  has  shown  amazing 
dexterity  and  skill  in  forming  his  system,  in  supporting  it 
by  buttresses  where  it  is  weak,  and  defending  it  against 


6  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

attacks.  He  has  certainly  raised  a  massive  structure,  with 
imposing  bulwarks ;  but,  in  these  times,  people  trust  more 
in  earthworks  than  in  stone  castles,  which  are  exposed  to 
attack  from  their  height ;  and  I  believe  the  time  is  at  hand 
when  we  shall  have  a  philosophy  of  a  lowlier  but  surer 
kind,  based  on  the  facts  of  our  mental  nature,  carefully 
observed. 

In  the  examination  which  I  am  to  undertake  I  am  not  to 
proceed  on  any  disputed  points  in  Kant’s  writings.  I  look 
only  to  the  broad  features  of  his  philosophy,  as  seen  both 
by  those  who  approve  of  and  those  who  oppose  him.  My 
criticisms  are  all  advanced  on  what  is  admitted  by  all  his 
disciples  and  interpreters.  I  do  not  mean  to  inquire 
whether,  as  some  maintain,  there  is  an  inconsistency  between 
the  Preface  to  the  second  edition  and  the  first  edition ;  or 
what  he  means  by  the  “  I  think  ”  which  he  represents  as  run¬ 
ning  through  all  the  exercises  of  the  a  priori  reason,  and 
what  we  are  to  understand  by  the  schematismus  and  the 
“  a  priori  imagination^  On  some  of  these  points  I  have 
views  which  I  may  intimate  as  I  advance.  But  there  are 
others  far  better  fitted  than  I  am  to  discuss  these  subjects, 
and  my  criticism  does  not  apply  to  any  controverted  doc¬ 
trine.  My  objections  are  directed  against  deeper  and  more 
essential  parts  of  his  philosophy  on  which  all  are  agreed  as 
to  his  meaning.  I  object  to  three  fundamental  positions  of 
Kant. 


I. 

I  OBJECT  TO  HIS  CRITICAL  METHOD. 

It  seems  that  in  the  school  of  Wolff,  in  which  he  was 
trained,  he  was  led,  first,  to  favor  the  Dogmatic  method  of 
Descartes  and  Leibnitz.  But  the  inquiring  spirit  of  the 


I  OBJECT  TO  HIS  CRITICAL  METHOD. 


7 


times  and  liis  own  reflection  convinced  him  that  this  method 
was  very  unsatisfactory,  as  each  man  or  school  had  set  out 
with  his  or  its  own  dogma,  and  people  were  now  unwilling 
to  accept,  on  any  authority,  dogmas  which  had  not  been 
sifted  by  an  accredited  test.  Following  the  manner  of  the 
matter-of-fact  age,  he  then  turned  to  the  “  empiricism,”  as 
he  calls  it,  of  the  “  celebrated  Locke.”  Hut  he  drew  back 
when  he  saw  what  consequences  were  drawn  from  it  by 
Hume.1  Dissatisfied  with  these  methods,  he  elaborated, 
expounded,  and  illustrated  a  method  of  his  own — the  Criti¬ 
cal  Method. 

There  may  be  a  legitimate  use  of  each  of  these  methods 
if  it  is  kept  within  proper  limits.  All  inquirers  have  to 
assume  something,  which  may  be  called  a  dogma ;  but  they 
must  be  ready  to  show  grounds  for  making  the  assumption. 
A  narrow  empiricism  may  miss,  as  certainly  Locke  did,  some 
of  the  deepest  principles  of  the  mind ;  may  not  notice  first 
or  intuitive  principles.  There  is  need  of  a  criticism  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  things  which  are  apt  to  be  confounded  in  hasty 
assumptions  and  generalizations.  But  surely  the  true 
method  in  all  sciences  which  have  to  do  with  facts,  as  I 
hold  that  all  the  mental  sciences  have,  is  the  inductive,  care 
being  taken  to  understand  and  properly  use  it. 

The  agent,  the  instrument,  the  eye,  the  sense  employed 
in  the  induction  of  the  facts,  is  self-consciousness.  By  it 
we  notice  the  operations  of  the  mind,  directly  those  of  our 
own  minds,  and  indirectly  those  of  others  as  exhibited  in 
their  words,  writings,  and  deeds.  What  we  thus  notice  is 


1  It  does  not  appear  that  Kant  ever  read  TIume’s  first  and  greatest 
work,  The  Treatise  of  Human  Nature ;  but  he  was  acquainted  in  a 
translation  with  the  Enquiry  into  the  Human  Understanding,  which 
was  a  second  form  of  the  first,  and  translated  into  German  by  Sulzer, 
1755,  and  also  with  a  translation  of  some  of  the  Essays  into  which 
Hume  broke  down  his  greater  works. 


8  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


singular  and  concrete,  like  the  facts  perceived  by  the  external 
senses.  But  we  may  proceed  to  abstract  and  generalize  upon 
what  we  observe,  and  in  this  way  discover  laws  which  are  to 
be  regarded  as  the  laws  of  our  mental  nature.  In  pursuing 
the  methods  we  find  laws  or  principles  which  are  funda¬ 
mental  and  necessary.  Aristotle  called  them  first  truths ; 
others  have  called  them  by  other  names  :  Kant  designates 
them  as  d  priori  principles,  and  represents  them  as  pro¬ 
nouncing  synthetic  judgments  a  priori.  I  hold  that  they 
perceive  objects  and  truths  directly  and  immediately,  and 
hence  may  be  called  intuitions.  They  act  prior  to  our  ob¬ 
servation  of  them ;  they  act  whether  we  observe  them  or 
not.  It  is  the  business  of  the  metaphysician  to  look  at 
their  working,  to  determine  their  exact  nature,  their  rule 
of  action,  and  the  authority  which  they  claim.  His  inspec¬ 
tion  of  them  does  not  make  them  operate,  or  determine 
their  mode  of  operation.  He  can  watch  them  because  they 
act  and  as  they  act,  and  his  special  business  is  to  determine 
their  laws.  When  he  has  done  so  he  has  found  a  meta¬ 
physical,  what  indeed  may  be  regarded  as  a  philosophical, 
principle.  A  system  or  systematized  arrangement  of  such 
principles  constitutes  metaphysics  or  mental  philosophy. 

Kant  was  altogether  right  in  saying  that  the  end  aimed 
at  in  metaphysics  is  to  furnish  an  “  inventory  ”  or  “  com¬ 
pendium  ”  of  a  priori  principles.  But  he  proceeded  to  at¬ 
tain  this  end  in  a  wrong  way — by  the  method  of  Criticism. 
Surely  criticism  must  proceed  on  acknowledged  rules  or, 
tests.  On  what  principles  does  Kant’s  criticism  proceed  ? 
Kant  answers,  u  Pure  speculative  reason  has  this  peculiar¬ 
ity,  that  in  choosing  the  various  objects  of  thought  it  is 
able  to  define  the  limits  of  its  own  faculties,  and  even  to 
give  a  complete  enumeration  of  the  possible  modes  of  pro¬ 
posing  problems  to  itself,  and  thus  to  stretch  out  the  entire 
system  of  metaphysics  ”  (Pref.  to  2d  Edition).  But  must 


I  OBJECT  TO  HIS  CKITICAL  METHOD. 


9 


therepnot  in  that  case  be  a  prior  criticism  of  reason  to  find 
ont  whether  it  can  do  this  ?  And  must  not  this  criticism 
imply  a  previous  one  from  higher  principles  ad  infinitum  f 
Certain  it  is  that  from  the  time  of  Kant  we  have  had  a 
succession  of  critical  philosophies,  each  professing  to  go 
deeper  down  than  its  predecessors,  or  to  overtop  them. 
Fortunately — I  should  rather  say  wisely — Kant  takes  the 
forms  of  common  logic,  which  are  so  well  founded,  as  his 
criticising  principles,  and  has  thus  secured  valuable  truth 
and  much  systematic  consistency ;  only,  these  forms  have 
helped  to  keep  him  from  realities. 

Professor  Mahaffy  asks  with  amazement  whether  we  are 
to  accept  without  criticism  the  saws  of  the  common  people, 
or  the  dogmas  of  speculators — no  one  of  whom  agrees  with  his 
neighbor.  To  this  I  reply  that  it  has  always  been  under¬ 
stood  that  there  is  criticism  in  the  inductive  method.  Ba¬ 
con  would  have  us  begin  induction  with  the  “  necessary 
rejections  and  exclusions.”  Whately  and  logicians  gener¬ 
ally  speak  of  the  necessity  of  “  analysis,”  and  Whewell  en¬ 
joins  “  the  decomposition  of  facts.”  But  this  analysis,  or 
criticism,  if  you  choose  to  call  it  so,  must  be  applied  to 
facts,  in  the  case  of  mental  science  as  made  known  by  in¬ 
ternal  observation.  It  must  aim  at  separating  the  complex¬ 
ity  of  facts  as  they  present  themselves,  and  this  in  order  to 
discover  the  law  of  each  of  the  elements,  and  to  keep  us 
from  making  assertions  of  one  of  these  which  are  true  only 
of  another,  and  of  the  whole  what  are  true  only  of  some  of 
the  parts.  Our  aim  in  metaphysics  is  to  discover  what 
truths  are  intuitively  known,  and  for  this  purpose  we  must 
distinguish  them  from  their  concomitants,  in  particular 
from  all  mere  contingent  or  empirical  truths.  All  pro¬ 
fessed  metaphysical  principles  are  attempted  generalizations 
of  our  intuitive  perceptions  and  judgments.  But  these 
generalizations  are  in  the  first  instance  apt  to  be  crude,  by 


10  A  CRITICISM  OP  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


\ 


reason  of  mixing  np  other  things  with  primitive  intuitions. 
Even  in  more  advanced  stages  of  philosophy  metaphysi¬ 
cians  are  apt  to  lay  down  imperfect  and  mutilated  princi¬ 
ples  to  support  their  theories.  There  is  therefore  need  of 
a  criticism  to  distinguish  things  that  differ,  but  which  are 
mixed  together  in  experience,  or  are  put  in  one  category 
by  system  builders.  But  in  our  examination  we  are  not  to 
put  ourselves  above  the  facts.  We  must  be  at  special  pains 
not  to  override  or  mutilate  them,  still  less  to  twist  or  tor- 
ture  them.  Our  single  aim  should  be  to  apprehend  and 
express  them  accurately,  and  to  apply  them  only  to  the  objects  | 
on  which  they  bear.  Kant  speaks  (Pref.  to  2d  Edition)  of  ! 
“  purifying  the  d  priori  principles  by  criticism  whereas 
the  proper  office  of  the  metaphysician  is  simply  to  discover  j 
what  they  are,  and  to  formulate  them  without  addition  or 
diminution. 

It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  our  observation  of  them,  of  : 
these  first  principles,  gives  them  their  being,  and  still  less  that 
it  gives  them  their  authority.  Our  notice  of  them  does  not 
give  them  existence.  We  notice  them  because  they  exist. 
By  observation  we  can  discover  that  they  exist,  and  find 
the  extent  and  limits  of  their  jurisdiction  and  authority. 
Truth  is  truth,  whether  we  observe  it  or  no.  Still,  obser¬ 
vation  has  its  place,  and  without  a  very  careful  induction,  j 
metaphysics  are  sure  to  be  nothing  else  than  a  system  of 
arbitrary  dogmas.  The  induction  does  not  give  them  their 
title.  They  have  their  authority  in  themselves,  but  obser¬ 
vation  makes  their  title  known  to  us.  Kant  is  constantly 
asserting  that  metaphysics  are  independent  of  the  teaching 
of  experience,  and  that  they  must  not  call  in  experience. 
They  are  independent  of  experience  as  that  mountain  is 
independent  of  my  eye.  Still,  it  is  only  by  my  eye  that  I 
can  see  the  mountain.  1 

A  metaphysical  philosophy  can  be  constructed  only  by 


/ 


( 


I  OBJECT  TO  HIS  CRITICAL  METHOD.  11 

a  j  the  induction  of  the  operations  of  our  intuitions.  We  can 
t  J  give  the  marks  and  tests  of  these  intuitions.  Their  prima- 
i  j  ry  and  essential  character  is  not  necessity,  as  Leibnitz  held  ; 
i  j  nor  necessity  and  universality,  as  Kant  maintained  ;  but 
1  sej£sjd4©»ee  :  they  look  immediately  on  things,  and  con- 
'  tain  their  evidence  within  themselves.  Being  so,  they  be- 
j  come  necessary,  that  is,  have  a  necessity  of  conviction, 
which  is  the  secondary  test,  and  universal— that  is,  enter- 
(  tained  by  all  men,  which  is  their  tertiary  corroboration, 
f  |j  After,  but  not  till  after,  having  discovered  and  co-ordi- 
ji'  nated  intuitive  principles,  we  may  then,  if  we  are  deter- 
1  mined,  inquire  whether  they  are  to  be  trusted.  Such  an / 
P  investigation  can  not,  I  fear,  be  very  fruit-bearing;  the 
result  must  be  mainly  negative.  It  is  an  attempt  to  dig 
[  beneath  the  ground  on  which  the  building  rests,  to  fly 
!  above  air*  Still,  by  such  a  process  we  may  be  able  to 
show  that  our  intuitions  confirm  each  other,  and  thus  yield 
not  a  primary,  but  a  secondary  or  reflected,  evidence  of 
their  trustworthiness.  It  can  also  be  shown  that  they  do 
1  not  contradict  each  other ;  that  there  is  nothing  in  them  to 
countenance  the  alleged  antinomies  of  Kant,  Hegel,  Ham¬ 
ilton,  or  Spencer,  all  of  which  are  contradictions,  not  in 
things  or  our  intuitive  convictions,  but  simply  in  the  mu¬ 
tilated  propositions  drawn  out  by  these  men.  But  in  the 
first  and  last  resort  we  are  to  rest  on  the  circumstance  that 
these  first  principles  are  of  the  nature  of  intuitions  looking 
directly  on  things.  As  this  is  the  first,  so  it  is  also  the 
strongest  evidence  that  the  mind  can  have.  It  is  the  strong¬ 
est  which  it  can  conceive  itself  to  have.  When  it  has  this 
it  is  always  satisfied,  and  it  does  not  seek  anything  more ; 
and  if  more  be  offered,  it  will  be  felt  to  be  a  superfluity, 
and  if  it  be  pressed,  it  will  be  apt  to  resent  it  as  insult. 


12  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


II. 

J  OBJECT  TO  KANTS  PHENOMENAL  THEORY  OF 
PRIMITIVE  KNOWLEDGE. 

Hume  opens  his  Treatise  of  Human  Nature :  “  All  the 
perceptions  of  the  human  mind  resolve  themselves  into 
two  distinct  kinds,  which  I  call  impressions  and  ideas.” 
The  difference  between  these  consists  in  the  greater  live¬ 
liness  of  the  impressions.  Under  impressions  he  includes 
such  heterogeneous  mental  states  as  sensations,  perceptions, 
emotions,  and  I  should  suppose  resolutions.  Under  ideas 
he  has  memory,  imagination  (often  as  lively  as  sensation), 
judgment,  reasoning,  moral  convictions,  all  massed  together. 

Kant’s  aim  was  to  meet  the  great  sceptic.  In  doing  so 
he  wished  to  make  as  few  assumptions  as  possible.  Let  us 
assume,  he  virtually  says,  what  no  one  can  deny.  Hume 
had  said,  “  As  long  as  we  confine  our  speculations  to  the 
appearances  of  objects  to  our  senses,  without  entering  into 
disquisitions  concerning  their  real  nature  and  operations, 
we  are  safe  from  all  difficulties.”  At  this  point  Kant 
starts :  Let  us  assume  the  existence  of  appearances — 
Hume’s  very  words  ;  of  Erssheinungen,  of  Eindriicke — that 
is,  impressions.  This  is  his  first  and  perhaps  his  greatest 
mistake. 

Kant,  as  it  appears  to  me,  should  have  met  Hume’s  very 
first  positions.  The  mind  does  not  begin  with  impressions. 
The  word  is  vague,  and  in  every  way  objectionable.  It 
signifies  a  mark  made  by  a  harder  body,  say  a  seal,  upon  a 
softer  body,  say  wax.  Taken  literally,  it  implies  two 
bodies — one  impressing,  the  other  impressed ;  applied  meta¬ 
phorically,  it  indicates  a  body  to  impress  and  a  mind  im¬ 
pressed.  As  applied  to  our  perceptions  by  consciousness, 
say  of  self  as  thinking,  and  our  purely  mental  acts,  as  our 


I  OBJECT  TO  HIS  PHENOMENAL  THEORY. 


13 


idea  of  moral  good,  it  has  and  can  have  no  meaning  for 
there  is  nothing  without  impressing,  and  the  operation  has 
nothing  whatever  of  the  nature  of  an  impression.  Kant 
should  have  met  these  primary  positions.  But  he  concedes 
them.  In  doing  so  he  has  broken  down  his  walls  of  defence, 
t  and  admitted  the  horse  fashioned  by  the  deceit  of  the 
7  enemy,  and  is  never  able  to  expel  him  or  counteract  the 
j  evil  which  he  works. 

An  impression,  if  it  means  any  thing,  means  a  thing  im- 
pressed.  An  appearance,  if  we  understand  it,  means  a 
j  thing  appearing,  and  it  seems  to  imply  a  being  to  whom  it 
appears.  An  impression  without  a  thing  impressed  is  an 
i  abstraction  from  a  thing  impressed.  An  appearance  is  an 
abstraction  from  a  thing  appearing.  As  all  abstractions 
imply  a  concrete  thing  from  which  they  are  taken,  so  all 
appearances  imply  a  thing  known  as  appearing.  In 

physics  a  phenomenon  means  a  thing,  a  reality  presented 
to  be  referred  to  a  law. 


1 


I 


It  has  been  commonly  allowed,  since  the  days  of  Locke 
that  man’s  two  original  inlets  of  knowledge  are  sensation 
or  sense-perception,  and  reflection  or  self-consciousness. 
Kant  speaks  everywhere  of  an  outer  and  an  inner  sense. 
Kow,  I  hold  that  by  both  of  these  we  know  things.  By 
sense-perception  we  know  our  bodies  and  bodies  beyond 
them;  and  Kant  says  correctly,  “Extension  and  impen¬ 
etrability  together  constitute  our  conception  of  matter” 
(Trans.,  p.  379).  There  may  be  disputes  difficult  to  settle— 
as  what  are  our  original  and  what  our  acquired  sense- 
perceptions,  whether  of  our  bodily  frame  or  of  it  with 
objects  affecting  it ;  but  our  acquired  imply  original  per¬ 
ceptions,  and^both  in  the  first  instance  and  in  the  last 
resort  contemplate  objects  as  extended,  and  exercising  some 
sort  of  energy.  It  is,  if  possible,  still  more  emphatically 
true  that  self-consciousness  reveals  not  mere  appearance, 
but  self  as  a  thing,  say  as  thinking  or  feeling. 


14  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


But  what,  it  may  he  asked,  is  the  proof  of  this  ?  To 
this  I  answer,  first,  as  an  argumentum  ad  homvnem ,  that 
we  have  the  same  proof  of  it  as  we  have  of  the  impression, 
of  the  presentation,  of  the  phenomenon.  Whatever  those 
who  hold  these  slippery  theories  appeal  to,  I  also  appeal 
to ;  and  I  am  sure  that  the  tribunal  must  decide  in  my  be-  j 
half.  I  have  the  same  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  thing  1 
impressed  as  I  have  of  the  impression,  of  the  thing  appear¬ 
ing  as  I  have  of  the  appearance.  But  secondly,  and  posi¬ 
tively,  the  position  I  hold  can  stand  the  tests  of  intuition. 

It  is  self-evident ;  we  perceive  the  very  things,  say  the  nos¬ 
trils  as  affected,  or  self  as  reasoning.  We  do  not  need  me¬ 
diate  proof ;  we  have  immediate.  It  is  also  necessary :  I 
can  not  be  made  to  believe  otherwise  that  I  do  not  exist,  or  | 
that  there  is  no  body  resisting  my  energy.  It  is,  farther, 
universal,  as  admitting  no  exceptions,  and  as  being  held  by 
all  men,  young  and  old,  savage  and  civilized.  It  can  thus 
stand  the  tests  used  by  Kant,  which  are  the  two  last. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  account  given  by  Kant.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  him,  we  know  mere  appearance ;  and  his  defini¬ 
tion  is,  “  the  undetermined  object  of  an  empirical  intuition 
is  called  an  appearance  or  phenomenon.”  Speaking  of  the 
rainbow,  “not  only  are  the  rain-drops  mere  phenomena, 
but  even  their  circular  form,  nay,  the  space  itself  through 
which  they  fall,  is  nothing  in  itself,  but  both  are  mere 
modifications  or  fundamental  dispositions  of  our  sensuous 
intuition,  while  the  transcendental  object  remains  for  us 
utterly  unknown  ”  (Trans.,  p.  38).  This  is  his  account  not 
merely  of  material  objects,  but  of  space,  time,  and  self. 

“  Time  and  space,  with  all  phenomena  therein,  are  not  in 
themselves  things.  They  are  nothing  but  representations, 
and  can  not  exist  out  of  and  apart  from  the  mind.  Kay, 
the  sensuous  internal  intuition  of  the  mind  (as  the  object 
of  consciousness),  the  determination  of  which  is  represented 


:] 


I 

I 


l 

1 


I  OBJECT  TO  HIS  PHENOMENAL  THEORY.  15 

by  the  succession  of  different  states  in  time,  is  not  the  real 
proper  self  as  it  exists  in  itself,  not  the  transcendental  sub¬ 
ject,  but  only  a  phenomenon  which  is  presented  to  the  sen¬ 
sibility  of  this,  to  us,  unknown  being  ”  (Trans.,  p.  307). 

Professor  Mahaffy  calls  on  me  to  define  what  I  mean  by 
thing.  I  answer  that  it  is  one  of  those  simple  objects 
which  according  to  all  logicians  can  not  be  logically  de¬ 
fined  ;  not  because  we  do  not  know  it,  but  because  we 
know  it  at  once,  and  can  not  find  anything  simpler  or 
clearer  by  which  to  explain  it.  All  that  we  can  do  posi¬ 
tively  is  to  say  that  %t  is  what  we  know  it  to  be  ;  or  to  ex¬ 
press  it  in  synonymous  phrases,  and  call  it  a  being  or  an 
existence.  But  we  may,  as  logicians  allow  in  such  cases, 
lay  down  some  negative  propositions  to  face  misapprehen¬ 
sions,  and  to  distinguish  it  from  other  things  with  which  it 
may  be  confounded.  1.  A!  is  not  an  abstract  or  general 
knowledge,  say  of  a  to  ok  or  essence  or  being;  or  of  a 
quality,  say  form  or  thought ;  or  of  a  maxim,  say  that  a 
property  implies  a  substance.  Our  primary  knowledge  is  in 
no  sense  a  science,  which  is  knowledge  systematized.  But 
the  knowledge  thus  arranged  is  real  knowledge,  and  be¬ 
cause  it  is  so,  science  is  to  be  regarded  as  dealing  with  reali¬ 
ties,  and  gives  no  sanction  to  agnostics  or  nihilism.  2. 
This  thing  is  not  a  mere  appearance.  What  appears  may 
be  known  very  vaguely — it  may  be  a  cloud,  a  shadow,  or 
the  image  of  a  tree  in  a  river.  Still  it  is  a  reality — that  is, 
a  real  thing ;  it  consists  of  drops  of  moisture,  of  a  surface 
deprived  of  light,  or  of  a  reflection.  3.  Man’s  primary 
perception  is  not  of  a  relation  between  objects,  but  of  ob¬ 
jects  themselves.  When  I  see  a  round  body  I  see  it  as  a 
round  body.  I  may  also  be  conscious  of  myself  as  per¬ 
ceiving  it.  Having  these  two  objects  I  may  discover  a  re¬ 
lation  between  them,  and  find  that  the  round  body  affects 
me.  But  I  first  know  the  round  body  and  the  self,  and  as  ex- 


16  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


i sting  independent  of  each  other.  The  round  body  maybe 
seen  by  others  as  well  as  me,  and  the  self  may  next  instant 
be  contemplating  a  square  body.  Holding  by  these  posi¬ 
tions  we  are  delivered  from  both  the  phenomenal  and  rela¬ 
tive  theories  of  knowledge  of  body  and  mind,  and  find 
that  we  have  real  things,  between  winch  we  may  discover 
relations  which  are  also  real.  A  relation  without  things  ( 
has  always  appeared  to  me  to  be  like  a  bridge  with  nothing  j 
to  lean  on  at  either  end. 

The  thing  which  I  thus  posit  is,  I  admit,  not  the  same 
as  that  of  which  Kant  speaks.  We  are  told  that  Kant  had 
two  kinds  of  sensible  knowledge — things  as  phenomena, 
and  things  per  se.  I  have  been  asserting  that  we  know 
more  than  phenomena.  I  allow  that  what  I  assume  is  not 
the  thing  in  itself — the  Ding  an  sich,  as  Kant  expresses  it ; 
the  thing  per  se,  as  Mahaffy  translates  it.  I  confess  that  I 
do  not  understand  what  is  meant  to  be  denoted  by  this 
phrase,  which  seems  to  me  to  be  of  a  misleading  character,  j 
as  seeming  to  have  a  profound  meaning  when  it  has  no 
meaning  at  all.  If  I  have  the  thing,  I  do  not  care  about  j 
having  the  in  itself,  as  an  addition — if,  indeed,  it  be  an  ad- 
dition.  It  is  enough  for  me  that  I  know  the  thing,dlm 
very  thing,  and  I  may  wish  to  know  more  of  the  thing  ;  ? 
and  this  I  may  be  able  to  do,  but  only  by  making  additions 
in  the  same  way  as  I  have  acquired  my  primary  knowl¬ 
edge.  As  to  the  thing  in  itself,  it  always  reminds  of  the 
whale  that  swallowed  itself. 

I  do  believe  that  Kant,  like  Locke,  wished  to  be  a  real¬ 
ist,  but  both  had  great  difficulty  in  getting  a  footing  on  terra 
firma  /  Locke  by  making  the  mind  perceive  only  ideas, 
and  Kant  because  he  made  it  perceive  phenomena,  which 
are  only  a  more  fugitive  form  of  ideas.  He  opposes  ideal¬ 
ism,  and  maintains  that  the  internal  implies  the  existence  of 
the  external — by  a  very  doubtful  argument,  as  it  appears  to 


I  OBJECT  TO  HIS  PHENOMENAL  THEORY,  17 


me,  unless  we  give  the  internal  the  power  of  knowing  the 
external.  He  is  quite  sure  that  there  is  a  thing,  a  Ding 
•an  sich.  But  then  he  admits  that  we  can  never  reach  it, 
can  never  catch  it.  The  thing  does  exist,  hut  then  it  is  a 
thing  unknown  and  unknowable,  and  we  land  ourselves  in 
contradiction  if  we  suppose  that  we  know  it.  Kant  is  thus 
the  true  founder  and  Hamilton  the  supporter  (both  without 
meaning  it),  and  Herbert  Spencer  the  builder  of  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  nescience  or  agnostics,  underlying  so  much  of  the 


philosophic  and  physical  speculation  of  the  present  day. 

We  can  avoid  these  consequences  only  by  making  the 
mind  begin  with  a  reality.  If  we  do  not  begin  with  it  we 
can  not  end  with  it.  H  we  do  not  assume  it  we  can  not  in¬ 
fer  it.  “  How  can  we  reason  but  from  what  we  know  \  ” 
And  if  there  be  not  knowledge  and  fact  in  the  premises, 
we  can  not,  as  Kant  knew  well,  have  it  in  the  conclusion 
without  a  gross  paralogism. 

Kant  holds  that  the  mind  has  the  power  of  Perception, 
of  Anschauung.  But  let  us  carefully  note  what  this  Per¬ 
ception  is.  He  argues  that  there  is  a  thing,  a  thing  in 
itself  without  the  mind,  but  this  is  unknown  and  unknow¬ 
able,  and  is  known  simply  by  what  it  produces  in  the 
mind.  In  the  perception  itself  there  is  both  an  a  priori 
and  an  a  posteriori  element — a  sensation  of  color,  or  feel¬ 
ing,  or  taste  caused  from  without,  but  perceived  under  the 
form  of  space  m  the  mind,  hi  ow  all  these  are  in  the  mind 
itself.  I  may  quote  from  The  Reproduction  in  the  Text- 
Booh  to  Kant  by  Dr.  Stirling,  who  surely  understands  his 
author :  “We  know  only  our  own  affections.  What  we 
call  things  are  only  these  affections  themselves  variously 
combined,  manipulated,  and  placed.”  “All  our  knowl¬ 
edge  consists  of  two  factors  and  both  are  subjective.” 
“  We  have  always  to  recollect  that  what  we  call  things  are 
but  aggregates  of  our  own  sensations  and  nothing  really 


18  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


without.”  This  is  true  even  of  space  and  time.  “  Whether 
we  look  on  space  or  time,  it  is  only  our  own  states  we  knoT  A 
in  either”  (p.  42).  This  seems  to  me  to  be  a  very  artificial u 
and  altogether  a  very  unnatural  account  of  perception — a  If, / 
process  of  which  we  are  all  conscious.  It  certainly  takes  j , 

external  things  and  issues  logi- |jj ' 


altogether  from 


us  away 
cally  in  agnosticism. 

I  am  aware  that  in  maintaining  the  reality  of  things 
within  and  without  we  have  to  draw  certain  distinctions. 
There  is  the  distinction  between  our  original  and  acquired 
perceptions.  It  is  only  in  the  first  of  these  that  we  know 
the  thing  directly  ;  the  others  we  know  only  by  a  process 
of  gathered  experience  in  which  error  may  creep  in.  We 
now  know  approximately  what  are  our  original  perceptions 
by  the  various  senses.  By  the  eye  we  know  primarily  only* 
a  colored  surface.  By  the  muscular  sense  we  know  bodies 
as  solid  or  impenetrable.  By  the  senses  of  taste,  smell,  and 
feeling  we  seem  to  know  only  our  organism  as  affected. 
These  distinctions  were  unknown  to  Kant  and  his  imme¬ 
diate  followers,  and  have  only  been  revealed  to  us  by  the 
experiments  wrought  on  the  senses,  such  as  those  of  Chisel- 
den  and  Franz,  showing  that  we  do  not  know  distance  by 
the  eye. 

It  may  be  noticed,  also,  that  in  the  school  of  Kant  there 
is  not  so  much  attention  paid  as  in  the  school  of  Locke  and 
Beid  to  the  distinction  often  ill-expressed  between  the  Pri¬ 
mary  and  Secondary  Qualities  of  Matter.  The  Primary  are 
such  as  extension  and  potency,  found  in  all  bodies,  whereas 
the  Secondary  are  organic  affections,  such  as  colors,  heat, 
sounds,  tastes,  implying  an  external  cause.  Thus  heat  is 
felt  as  an  affection  of  the  bodily  frame,  but  it  has  a  cause 
in  molecular  motion.  Carrying  these  distinctions  with  us, 
we  can  and  should  maintain  that  in  our  original  sense-per¬ 
ceptions  we  know  matter  and  its  primary  qualities  directly 
and  immediately. 


THE  MIND  IMPOSING  FOEMS. 


19 


in. 

OBJECT  TO  KANTS  IDEAL  DOCTRINE  OF  THE 
MIND  IMPOSING  FORMS  ON  THINGS  AP¬ 
PEARING. 

This  error  connects  itself  with  the  previous  ones.  Man 
upposed  to  perceive  not  things,  but  appearances,  and  he 
is  in  forms  to  give  unity  to  scattered  appearances.  These 
forms  are  void  in  themselves ;  they  need  a  content,  and  they 
are  applicable  to  objects  of  possible  experience,  but  to  noth¬ 
ing  else.  The  language  is  meant  to  express  a  truth,  but  it 
fails  to  do  so.  Would  it  be  correct  to  represent  the  law  of 
gravitation,  as  a  form,  void  in  itself,  and  capable  of  being 
applied  to  matter  and  its  molecules  ?  The  correct  statement 
lis  that  gravitation  is  a  property  of  matter.  In  like  manner, 
the  original  endowments  of  mind  are  powers  in  the  mind 
itself,  enabling  us  to  know  things. 

Kant  maintains  that  it  must  either  be  the  external  that 
'determines  the  internal,  or  the  internal  that  determines  the 
external.  The  experientialist  makes  the  external  determine 
the  internal,  makes  the  mind  simply  reflect  what  passes  be¬ 
fore  it.  Kant  maintains  in  opposition  that  the  internal  de¬ 
termines  the  external,  and  he  would  thus  raise  a  breakwater 
in  the' mind  itself  against  materialism  and  scepticism.  But 
purely  the  natural  and  rational  supposition  is  that  the  inter¬ 
nal  perceives  (not  creates)  the  external,  and  it  should  be 
iadded,  the  internal  also.  The  primitive  intellectual  exer¬ 
cises  of  the  mind  are  perceptions  looking  at  things.  By 
sense-perception  we  perceive  external  objects  in  our  body 
or  beyond  it  as  they  are  presented  to  us,  and  we  know  them 
Ls  extended  and  resisting  our  energy.  By  self-consciousness 
we  know  self  as  thinking,  imagining,  hating,  or  loving. 
These  exercises  are  all  singular,  but  we  can  generalize  them 


20  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


and  thus  discover  the  laws  of  our  perceptions — be  it  c 
served,  perceptions  of  things,  and  not  impressions  or  a 
pearances — and  these  form  an  important  department 
metaphysic,  which  becomes  a  positive  department  of  til 
science,  and  not  a  mere  police,  as  Kant  would  make  it 
preserve  us  from  error.  We  have  here  in  the  mind  p 
ciples  which,  looking  to  things,  give  us  fundamental  tru 

But  Kant  gives  to  these  principles  not  a  mere  percept 
but  a  formative  power.  Our  intuitions  are  not  per< 
tions,  looking  at  things  and  the  relations  of  things,  but  l 
moulds  imposing  on  phenomena  what  is  not  in  the  phe-l 
nomena.  Our  primary  knowledge  thus  consists  of  two  ele¬ 
ments,  one  d  posteriori  from  experience,  the  other  d  prion 
from  the  stores  of  the  mind. 

This  may  be  the  appropriate  place  at  which  to  call  atten 
tion  to  the  phrases  d  priori  and  d  posteriori ,  so  constantly 
employed  in  all  philosophic  works.  In  the  philosophy  of, 
Aristotle,  by  proceeding  d  priori  is  meant  going  from 
cause  to  effect  or  from  antecedent  to  consequent ;  by  d 
posteriori ,  arguing  from  effect  to  cause  or  from  consequent 
to  antecedent.  Hume  occasionally  uses  the  phrases,  bul 
gives  them  a  somewhat  different  signification.  By  d priori 
he  designates  what  is  known,  independent  of  experience ; 
by  d  posteriori ,  what  is  gathered  by  experience.  It  is  ir 
this  sense  the  terms  are  used  by  Kant,  and  in  all  the  phi¬ 
losophies  that  have  ramified  from,  or  been  influenced  by 
him.  These  phrases  are  so  universally  used  that  we  can  no' 
discard  them.  But  in  employing  them  let  us  understand 
what  is  meant  by  them.  We  are  not  to  interpret  them  as 
implying  that  there  is  'knowledge  or  notions  in  the  mind 
prior  to  experience.  Hor  are  we  to  use  them  as  implying 
that  the  mind  in  its  perceptions  gives  to  the  object  a  qual¬ 
ity  not  in  the  thing  as  known. 

By  d  priori  we  denote  principles  which  are  in  the  very 


THE  MIND  IMPOSING  FORMS. 


21 


|  nature  and  constitution  of  tlie  mind  '—to  use  language  fa¬ 
vored  by  Butler  and  the  Scottish  school.  But  in  some  con¬ 
nections  the  phrase  is  liable  to  be  misunderstood,  and  may 
/  lead  into  serious  error.  It'  may  mean  that  we  are  entitled 
to  start  with  a  favorite  principle  without  previously  in¬ 
quiring  whether  it  has  a  place  in  the  mind,  and  what  is  its 
precise  place ;  and  then  rear  upon  it  or  by  it  a  huge  super¬ 
structure.  I  use  the  phrase  as  one  universally  adopted,  but 
I  employ  it  only  as  I  explain  it.  I  denote  by  it  those  prin¬ 
ciples,  intellectual  and  moral,  which  act  in  the  mmd  natu¬ 
rally  and  necessarily.  But  I  do  not  allow  that  we  can  use 
them  in  constructing  systems  till  we  have  first  carefully  in¬ 
ducted  them.  I  believe  in  a  priori  laws  operating  spon¬ 
taneously  in  the  mind,  but  I  do  not  believe  in  an  &  prior  i 
science  constructed  by  man.  There  is  a  sense  indeed  in 
which  there  may  be  an  a  priori  science — that  is,  a  science 
composed  of  the  d  priori  principles  in  the  mind.  _  But  then 
they  have  to  be  discovered  in  order  to  form  a  science,  and 
their  precise  nature  and  mode  of  operation  determined  by  a 
\posteriori  inspection.  Like  the  Scottish  school,  I  am  suspi¬ 
cious  of  the  lofty  systems  of  ancient,  mediaeval,  and  modem 
times  which  have  been  fashioned  by  human  ingenuity. 
Acting  on  this  principle,  I  reject,  with  the  majority  o 
Sinking  people,  and  with  metaphysicians  themselves  more 
;han  half  the  metaphysics  that  have  been  constructed.  At 
;imes  I  am  grateful  when  I  discover  a  native  principle 
voven  into  these  webs,  only  considerably  twisted.  In  re¬ 
jecting  these  speculations  I  am  not  to  be  charged  with 
rejecting  d  priori  truths  in  the  mind.  I  am  simply  scepti¬ 
cal  of  the  use  that  has  been  made  of  them  by  the  mgenui  y 
of  man.  With  me,  philosophy  consists  in  a  body  of  first 


’Thev  are  the  Regulative  Principles  spoken  of  under  the  Three- 
fold  Aspect of  Intuition  .« the  opening  of  No.  V.  of  thin  Serie,. 


22  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


principles  in  the  mind,  carefully  observed  and  expressed. 
This  may  be  as  firm  and  sure  as  any  system  of  natur?1, 
science^  *\ 

But  in  employing  them,  let  us  understand  what  we  mean 
by  them.  We  are  not  to  understand  them  as  implying 
that  there  is  knowledge  or  notions  in  the  mind  prior  to  ex¬ 
perience.  They  are  to  be  understood  as  simply  denoting 
that  these  laws  are  in  the  mind  prior  to  any  exercise  of  them! 
and  regulating  our  exercises,  intellectual  and  moral,  and 
guaranteeing  great  fundamental  truths.  Of  this  description 
is  the  law  in  our  mind  which  leads  us  to  decide  that  an  ef¬ 
fect  proceeds  from  a  cause. 

Here  I  may  remark  that  there  is  an  ambiguity  in  the 
term  1  experience,’  which  has  seldom  been  noticed.  It  may 
denote  an  individual  experience  or  it  may  signify  a  gathered 
experience  or  induction.  In  the  former  sense,  everything! 
which  passes  through  the  mind  is  an  experience — say  the 
experience  of  ourselves  in  pain  or  of  ourselves  as  knowing 
and  deciding.  In  this  sense  every  exercise  of  intuition  or 
of  d  priori  reason  is  an  experience.  These  individual  ex-/ 
periences,  it  is  evident,  do  not  reveal  anything  beyond 
themselves.  But'*  when  we  talk  of  experience  making 
known  truth  we  mean  a  gathered  experience  or  an  induc¬ 
tive  process  leading  to  a  law.  It  is  in  this  latter  sense  that 
we  draw  the  distinction  between  truth  discovered  a  priori 
and  truth  discovered  by  experience  or  a  posteriori — the 
better  phrase  would  be  ‘  inductive  experience.’ 

He  admits  that  there  is  an  a  posteriori  matter  furnished 
by  the  senses.  I  confess  I  have  had  a  difficulty  in  finding 
what  this  a  posteriori  matter  is.  In  the  Introduction  he  tells 
us  what  belongs  to  “  sensuous  experience,” — “  color,  hard¬ 
ness  or  softness,  weight,  impenetrability,  etc.”  In  the  open¬ 
ing  of  the  Transcendental  ^Esthetic  he  gives  us  as  belong¬ 
ing  to  sensation,  “impenetrability,  hardness,  color,”  etc.  It 


THE  MIND  IMPOSING  POEMS. 


23 


/tic 


is  rather  strange  to  find  impenetrability  here,  as  it  implies 
both  extension  and  force,  which,  in  his  system,  are  supposed 
?  be  imposed  d  priori  by  the  mind  itself.  This  shows  in 
,/hat  difficulties  he  is  when  he  would  refer  some  percep- 
ions  to  sensation  or  experience  and  others  to  forms  in  the 
mind. 

But  while  he  holds  that  we  get  so  much  from  sensation 
and  experience,  he  maintains  that  we  have  a  more  import¬ 
ant  a  priori  element  imposed  as  a  form  on  objects.  Phe¬ 
nomena  present  themselves  through  the  senses  as  manifold 
and  scattered.  I  perceive  a  rose  to  have  unconnected  phe¬ 
nomena,  as  particles,  colors,  odors,  shapes,  and  the  mind 
combines  them  into  a  unity  of  object.  Now,  we  have  to 
Imeet  Kant  at  this  second  point  as  we  have  met  him  at  the 
/first.  I  have  been  arguing  that  the  mind  begins  with  the 
1  knowledge  of  things  existing ;  and  I  now  affirm  that  this 
knowledge  is  of  things  in  the  concrete,  of  substances  with 
their  properties,  of  body  as  at  once  having  form  and  color, 
of  this  stone  at  one  and  the  same  time  with  the  form  of  a 
cross  and  of  a  brown  color.  The  unity  is  not  given  to  it 
by  the  mind,  it  is  in  the  object,  say  the  rose  or  stone ;  but  is 
perceived  at  once  by  the  senses.  At  this  point  he  intro¬ 
duces  his  first  ideal  element  and  in  doing  so  he  gives  an  en¬ 
tirely  erroneous  view  of  what  the  senses  disclose. 

He  carried  this  distinction  into  every  exercise  of  the  senses, 
there  being  always  an  d  posteriori  part  but  a  more  pow¬ 
erful  d  priori  element  imparted  by  the  mind.  He  uses  this 
latter  part  as  a  rock  to  beat  back  the  waves  of  scepticism. 
But  in  all  this,  he  has,  in  fact,  allowed  the  entrance  of  a 
more  subtle  scepticism  than  that  of  Hume.  In  all  cases  the 
subjective  joins  on  to  the  objective,  and  we  can  not  tell 
what  the  object  as  a  thing  is  as  distinguished  from  the  sub¬ 
ject.  For  if  the  formative  mind  may  add  one  thing,  why 
not  two,  or  ten,  or  a  hundred,  till  we  know  not  what  reality 
is  left  us  ? 


24  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


Thus  we  have  a  door  opened  for  the  entrance  at  one  anc 
the  same  time  of  idealism  and  agnosticism;  both  of  thee 
have,  in  fact,  come  in.  We  have  an  ideal  element  contri 
uted  by  the  mind,  an  element  giving  no  objective  reali; 
and  an  empirical  element,  implying  it  may  be  a  reality, 
which,  however,  must  forever  remain  unknown.  We  shall 
see  that  higher  minds,  such  as  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel, 
used  the  ideal  factor  and  raised  imposing  structures,  of 
which  we  are  not  sure  whether  they  are  solid  mountains  or 
cloudland.  While  more  earthly  minds  took  the  other  fac¬ 
tor  and  drove  it  to  an  agnosticism  which  seeks  a  basis  in 
materialism, Hume  said  that  “if  we  carry  our  inquiry  be¬ 
yond  the  appearances  of  objects  to  the  senses,  I  am  afraid 
that  most  of  our  conclusions  will  be  full  of  scepticism  and 
uncertainty.”  But  we  have  seen  that  when  we  make  what 
are  commonly  regarded  as  things  to  be  mere  appearances, 
we  are  certainly  landed  in  these  issues  with  nothing  left  to 
deliver  us  from  them. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  distinction  between  ana¬ 
lytic  and  synthetic  judgments,  and  to  the  circumstance  that 
metaphysics  consist  in  synthetic  judgments  d  priori.  I 
maintain  that  metaphysics  have  to  look  first  to  things  be¬ 
fore  they  compare  things,  and  have  to  treat  of  primitive 
cognitions  before  they  treat  of  primitive  judgments.  But 
so  far  as  judgments  are  concerned,  the  distinction  is  a  valid 
and  an  important  one.  But  Kant’s  account  is  not  accurate.  1 
There  are  undoubtedly  synthetic  judgments  d  priori. 
But  what  is  their  nature  ?  They  are  not  judgments  apart 
from  things,  they  are  judgments  about  things;  that  two 
straight  lines  can  not  enclose  a  space  is  such  a  judgment, 
but  it  is  a  judgment  about  lines.  From  what  we  know 
about  straight  lines,  we  perceive  and  are  sure  and  decide 
that  they  can  not  enclose  a  space.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
innumerable  other  primitive  synthetic  judgments.  Such 


THE  HIND  IMPOSING  FORMS. 


25 


,re  those  we  pronounce  in  regard  to  space  and  number  and 
ime,  as  that  two  straight  lines  which  have  gone  on  for  an 
nch  without  coming  nearer  each  other  will  go  on  forever 
is  straight  lines  without  being  nearer ;  that  equals  added 
';o  equals  must  be  equals,  and  that  time  is  continuous  and 
uas  no  breaks  in  it ;  we  perceive  these  propositions  to  be 
true  from  the  nature  of  the  things  as  known  to  us.  Such 
are  all  mathematical  axioms,  and  all  deep  ethical  maxims, 
such  as  that  we  should  keep  our  word. 

In  order  to  prevent  his  philosophy  from  rising  into  total 
-dealism,  he  is  forever  telling  us  that  the  forms  which  he 
Calls  in  have  a  meaning  only  as  applied  to  objects  of  pos¬ 
sible  experience.  Here,  as  in  so  many  other  cases  in  Ivant’s 
philosophy,  there  is  truth  involved,  but  it  is  not  accurately 
expressed.  What  propriety  would  there  be  in  saying  that 
gravitation  has  a  meaning  only  when  applied  to  objects  of 
possible  experience  ?  The  true  statement  is  that  gravita¬ 
tion  is  a  law  of  all  material  things.  So  we  would  say  of 
the  primitive  judgment  of  causation  that  every  effect  has 
a  cause ;  that  it  is  not  a  judgment  applicable  to  all  objects 
of  possible  experience,  but  to  all  objects  known  to  us 
as  real. 

I  am  now  to  apply  these  principles  in  the  examination 
f  Kant’s  “ Kritik  of  Pure  Reason”  in  detail,  simply 
avoiding  those  topics  in  which  his  meaning  is  disputed. 
The  forms  which  the  mind  is  supposed  to  superinduce  on 
objects  fall  into  three  classes :  I.  In  .Esthetic,  that  is,  the 
senses,  the  Forms  of  Space  and  Time.  II.,  In  Analytic,  the 
Categories  of  Quantity,  Quality,  Relation,  Modality,  each 
including  three  subdivisions,  in  all  twelve ;  and  III.  In 
Dialectic,  the  three  Ideas  of  Substance,  Interdependence 
of  Phenomena,  and  God. 


26  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


\ 


Transcendental  ^Esthetic. 

In  treating  of  the  doctrine  that  the  mind  knows  onb 
appearances,  I  have  indicated  my  objections  to  Kant’, 
account  of  the  senses.  It  keeps  us  away  altogether  fron 
things  which  it  is  the  very  object  of  the  senses  to  makt 
known  to  us.  He  maintains  resolutely  that  there  is  a  work 
existing  external  to  the  mind,  but  on  his  principles  there 
can  be  no  evidences  of  this.  He  left  himself  no  means  oi 
meeting  his  quondam  pupil  Fichte,  when  he  argued  thaj 
the  mind  which  could  create  space  and  time  might  alsC 
create  the  objects  in  space  and  time ;  that  the  mind  which 
could  give  extension  to  this  ball  might  give  it  everything 
else  which  it  has.  This  external  thing  is  represented,  quite 
inconsistently  with  his  theory,  to  be  unknown  and  unknow 
able.  If  an  appeal  be  made  to  sense  and  experience  to  tes 
tify  that  the  external  thing  exists,  these  will  testify  farther, 
that  we  know  something  of  it — in  fact,  we  know  it  to  exist 
because  we  know  so  far  what  it  is. 

He  tells  us  that  “all  intuition  possible  to  us  is  sensuous” 
(Trans.,  p.  90).  The  word  “  sensuous  ”  is  apt  to  leave  a  bad 
impression,  and  has,  in  fact,  left  such  an  impression,  as  it 
seems  to  represent  all  intuition  as  being  of  the  externa 
senses.  But  he  evidently  means  to  include  in  the  phrase  ot 
internal  sense  or  self-consciousness.  Both  these  senses  pei 
ceive  only  phenomena.  Even  self-consciousness  gives  uf 
nothing  more.  u  The  subject  intuites  itself,  not  as  it  woule 
represent  itself  immediately  and  spontaneously,  but  accord 
ing  to  the  manner  in  which  the  mind  is  internally  affected 
consequently  as  it  appears,  and  not  as  it  is  ”  (Trans.,  p.  41). 
I  may  give  another  passage  or  two  as  translated  by  Mr.,' 
Mahaffy :  “  The  internal  sense  by  which  the  mind  intuites' 
its  own  internal  states  gives  us  no  intuition  of  the  soul  as 
an  object.”  “  Our  self-consciousness  does  not  present  to  us 


i  i 

V 


TRANSCENDENTAL  .ESTHETIC.  27 

*he  ego  any  more  distinctly  than  our  external  intuition  does 
co  us  foreign  bodies ;  we  know  both  only  as  phenomena.” 
He  does  not  seem  to  ascribe  much  to  this  internal  intuition. 
f‘  The  notion  of  personality  though  d  priori  is  not  an  intu¬ 
ition  at  all,”  but  “  a  logical  supposition  of  thought.”  At 
this  point,  that  is,  at  his  account  of  our  internal  intuition, 
our  higher  British  and  American  metaphysicians  are  most 
inclined  to  leave  him. 

Kant’s  whole  account  of  self-consciousness  is  complicated 
and  confused.  Dr.  Stirling,  in  his  Reproduction ,  in  ex¬ 
plaining  Kantism,  tells  us  “  that  inner  sense  is,  as  a  sense, 
to  be  strictly  distinguished  from  self-consciousness  or  the 
perception  of  the  ego.  The  contents  of  the  former  are  all 
the  transient  states  of  the  empirical  subject  when  under 
sentient  feeling;  whereas  those  of  the  latter  are  but  the 
simple  I,  a  mere  intellectual  act ;  the  bare  thought,  I,  I,  I, 
or  I  that  am  here  and  now  thinking  ( das  ‘  ich  denke .’ )” 
We  shall  see  as  we  advance  that  he  brings  in  an  “  I  think,” 
which  gives  a  unity  to  all  our  thinking.  All  these  are  un¬ 
natural  and  perverted  accounts  of  the  one  thing,  self-con¬ 
sciousness,  or  the  internal  sense.  It  is  the  power  which 
perceives — that  is,  knows — self  in  its  present  state.  It  runs 
through  all  our  states,  giving  us  a  continuous  self,  and  the 
various  states  of  self,  say,  as  thinking  or  willing. 

Kant  argues  that  in  getting  rid  of  many  appearances 
about  what  is  revealed  by  the  senses,  such  as  color,  odor, 
feeling,  we  can  never  put  away  or  get  rid  of  space  in  the 
external,  or  time  in  the  internal  sense.  These  he  represents 
as  forms  imposed  by  the  mind ;  space  being  the  form  of 
material,  and  time  of  mental  phenomena.  There  is  some 
little  foundation  of  truth  in  all  this,  but  the  statement  is, 
after  all,  utterly  perverse,  and  it  is  made  to  give  currency 
to  error.  Certainly  space  is  involved  in  all  the  exercises  of 
the  external  senses ;  but  this,  properly  interpreted,  means 


28  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


simply  that  we  know  matter  as  extended.  It  is  true  that 
time  is  bound  up  with  the  exercise  of  the  internal  sense, 
or  self-consciousness,  hut  by  this  we  are  simply  to  under¬ 
stand  that  all  events  are  remembered  in  time.  It  does  not 
follow  that  they  are  creations  of  the  mind,  or  that  they  are 
properly  represented  when  they  are  spoken  of  as  forms  im¬ 
posed  on  phenomena.  It  is  not  true  that  extension  and 
duration  are  superimposed  on  objects;  they  are  in  the. very 
nature  of  the  objects  and  events  as  made  known  to  us. 

There  are  other  things  besides  space  and  time  that  we 
can  not  be  rid  of  in  thought,  as  we  contemplate  things  per¬ 
ceived.  For  example,  we  know  both  matter  and  mind  as 
having  being.  The  old  Eleatics  were  right  in  giving  to  ov 
a  deep  place  in  their  philosophy,  though  they  erred  in  mak¬ 
ing  so  many  affirmations  about  so  simple  a  thing.  I  believe 
farther  that  we  know  all  objects  disclosed  by  the  senses  as 
having  power,  as  acting  and  being  acted  on.  I  think  we 
might  farther  represent  them  as  in  a  sense  having  inde¬ 
pendence  and  permanence,  that  is,  they  are  not  created  by 
our  minds  as  we  observe  objects,  nor  do  they  cease  to  exist 
when  we  cease  to  notice  them.  They  exist  independent  of 
us,  and  whether  we  notice  them  or  not.  They  are  as  much 
entitled  to  be  called  forms  as  space  and  time.  Being,  po¬ 
tency,  permanence,  are  not  d  priori  forms  imposed  on  sub¬ 
stances  ;  they  are  in  the  substances.  Just  as  little  is  exten¬ 
sion  added  to  matter  or  duration  added  to  events ;  they  are 
in  matter  and  discerned  to  be  in  matter  or  mind. 

Kant  represents  space  and  time  as  having  an  existence, 
but  it  is  merely  a  subjective  existence,  that  is,  in  the  mind 
as  contemplating  objects  and  events.  But  I  affirm  that  in¬ 
tuitively  and  necessarily  all  men  look  on  them  as  existing, 
and  as  existing  independently  of  our  noticing  them. 
I  am  quite  as  sure  of  the  reality  of  space  and  time  in¬ 
dependent  of  my  mind  as  of  the  objects  in  space  and 


TRANSCENDENTAL  AESTHETIC. 


29 


time.  By  making  space  and  time  merely  subjective, 
Kant  introduced  an  ideal  element  into  bis  philosophy  which 
he  could  never  expel.  We  have  only  to  carry  out  the 
same  principle  a  step  farther  to  be  landed  m  the  thorough 
idealism  of  Fichte,  and  make  the  mind  create  the  objects 
in  space  and  the  occurrences  in  time.  Then  when  men 
come  to  perceive  that  an  ideal  existence  is  no  existence,  but 
merely  an  imaginary  or  ghostly  existence,  the  creed  they 
adopt  will  be  nescience.  We  find  extremes  meeting  m  the 
present  day  in  a  pretentious  idealism  joined  with  a  deadly 

^ButwhTt  is  space  ?  and  what  is  time?  The  answer  is, 
that  we  can  not  explain  them  so  as  to  make  them  conceiv¬ 
able  to  one  who  did  not  already  know  them.  But  we  all 
know  them  in  the  concrete  in  objects  and  events,  and  we 
are  sure  that  they  are  what  we  know  them  to  be.  We  do 
not  need  any  explanations  as  to  what  they  are,  we  perceive 
them  directly,  and  are  satisfied  without  feeling  it  necessary 

to  put  any  farther  questions. 

From  what  we  know  we  can  make  many  affirmations 
regarding  them.  The  axioms  and  demonstrations  of  mathe¬ 
matics  proceed  upon  them.  The  Kantians  labor  to  show 
that  they  can  explain  by  their  forms  the  certainty  and  the 
necessity  of  mathematical  truths,  which  are  just  the  evolu- 
tion  of  what  the  mind  imposes  on  appearances.  Kant 
found  that  he  could  not  trace  out  and  learn  the  proper  les 
of  an  isosceles  triangle  from  what  he  saw  m  it,  or  from 
mere  thinking  about  it,  but  rather  from  what  he  had  added 
™ 2  in  his  own  mind  d  priori,  and  had  them  rep- 

resentedby  a  construction.  He  also  found  that  all  the  safe 
Zriori  knowledge  he  could  obtain  about  it  was  mere  y 
the  necessary  consequence  of  what  he  had  introduced  mo 
it  according  to  his  own  concepts’  (Mahaffiy  s  Cnt.  Phil 
for  English  Readers,  p.  12).  But  surely  this  leaves  it 


30  A  CKITICISM  OF  THE  CBITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


utterly  uncertain  whether  what  we  thus  bring  out  of  our 
minds  can  be  asserted  of  veritable  things ;  whether,  so  far 
as  things  are  concerned,  we  can  say  that  the  angles  of  a 
triangle  must  be  equal  to  two  right  angles ;  or  whether  par¬ 
allel  lines  can  not  meet.  We  have  a  much  simpler  and 
more  rational  way  of  accounting  for  the  apodictic  certainty 
of  mathematics.  We  perceive  lines  and  surfaces  as  reali¬ 
ties  ;  we  agree  to  look  solely  to  the  length  of  lines  and  the 
length  and  breadth  of  surfaces ;  and  as  we  do  so  we  dis¬ 
cover  that  they  have  certain  properties  involved  in  their 
very  nature,  and  that  the  three  angles  of  a  triangle  are 
together  equal  to  two  right  angles,  and  that  parallel  lines 
can  not  meet.  The  properties  of  the  ellipse,  as  demon¬ 
strated  by  Apollonius,  were  ready  to  be  applied  to  the 
planetary  bodies  when  Kepler  showed  that  they  moved  in 
elliptic  orbits.  On  the  other  hand,  we  may  put  many 
questions  regarding  space  and  time  which  we  can  not  an¬ 
swer.  Affirmations  are  often  made  of  them  which  are 
altogether  meaningless,  and  which  we  can  neither  prove  or 
disprove.  There  may  be  assertions  made  in  regard  to  them 
which  are  contradictory,  and  this  not  because  there  is  any¬ 
thing  inconsistent  in  the  things  themselves,  but  because  we 
make  rash  statements  which  contradict  each  other. 

While  we  have  a  knowledge  of  space  and  time  we  should 
allow  that  this  is  somewhat  indefinite.  We  know  them  as 
realities ;  but  do  we  ever  know  them  apart  from  other 
things  ?  We  know  this  body  as  occupying  space,  we  know 
this  event  as  occurring  in  time,  and  we  know  the  space  and 
time  to  be  realities  quite  as  much  as  the  body  and  the  event 
is ;  but  do  we  ever  know  space  and  time  as  separate  things, 
or  capable  of  a  distinct  and  independent  existence — as  a 
tree  is  distinct  from  an  animal  ?  Space  and  time  look  as  if 
somehow  or  other — we  may  not  be  able  to  tell  how — they 
were  always  connected  with  something  else,  as  if  they  were 


TEANSCENDENTAL  ANALYTIC.  31 

lependent  on  something  else  for  their  manifestation.  I 
believe  them  to  be  dependent  on  God,  who  inhabits  all 
space  and  all  time. 

In  following  our  intuitive  convictions  as  to  space  and 
time,  we  are  constrained  to  regard  both  as  having  no  limits. 
This  gives  rise  to  a  difficulty  which  Kant  has  powerfully 
pressed.  It  seems  to  make  two  infinites,  that  of  space  and 
time,  each  embracing  all  things,  while  we  are  also  con¬ 
strained  to  believe  in  a  third  infinite,  in  God  the  Almighty, 
che  Eternal.  But  there  is  a  misapprehension  involved  in 
this  objection.  We  do  not  hold  that  space  and  time  are 
nfinites  ;  infinity  is  merely  an  attribute  of  both.  We  do 
lot  say  of  their  infinity  that  it  embraces  all  things — we 
vould  never  propose  to  make  the  infinity  of  space  embrace 
norality.  When  we  say  that  space  is  infinite  we  mean 
imply  that  there  are  no  limits  to  its  extension.  There  is 
lot  even  an  apparent  inconsistency  between  this  and  the 
infinity  of  time  and  the  infinity  of  God.  It  can  not  be 
iroven  that  the  infinity  of  space  or  time  is  inconsistent 
|vith  the  infinity  of  God ;  more  probably  they  are  em- 
iraced  in  His  infinity. 

Transcendental  Analytic. 

We  now  rise  from  the  Senses  to  the  Understanding,  der 
V'erstand,  from  Intuitions  to  Notions  or  Conceptions.  The 
understanding  pronounces  judgments.  He  gives  an  inven¬ 
tory  of  these  judgments  and  calls  them  Categories.  The 
phrase  is  taken  from  Aristotle,  who  has  ten  Categories,  being 
the  heads  under  which  our  predications  regarding  things 
may  be  ranged.  The  aim  of  Kant,  as  has  been  shown  again 
md  again,  is  somewhat  different :  it  is  to  give  us  the  forms 
yhich  the  mind  imposes  on  our  intuitions  or  perceptions  in 
;;he  judgments  which  it  pronounces.  They  are  four  in 
number,  each  subdivided  into  three,  in  all  twelve. 


32  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


I.  Quantity. 
Unity. 


II.  Quality. 
Reality. 
Negation. 
Limitation. 


Plurality. 

Totality. 


III.  Relation. 


IV.  Modality. 

Possibility  and  Impossibility. 
Existence  and  Non-existence. 
I  Necessity  and  Contingence. 


Inherence  and  Subsistence. 
Causality  and  Dependence. 
Reciprocity  of  Agent  and 


Patient. 


There  has  been  an  immense  amount  of  discussion  in 
Germany  about  these  categories.  The  first  two  of  the  f oui ' 
are  evidently  taken  from  Logic,  of  which  Kant  was  pro 
fessor,  and  are  found  in  all  treatises  of  formal  logic.  Tin 
remarks  of  Kant  upon  them  have  helped  to  make  th< 
ordinary  logic  more  clear,  consistent,  and  philosophical 
They  are  represented  as  mathematical,  whereas  the  othe 
two  are  dynamical  and  certainly  imply  ideas  of  being,  o 
force  and  causation.  These  last  are  metaphysical  rathe: 
than  logical  and  do  not  now  appear  in  the  treatises  o> 
formal  logic  which  treat  of  the  laws  of  discursive  thought 
It  appears  to  me  that  Kant  should  here  have  given  u 
not  the  forms  of  logic,  but  the  relations  which  the  min< 
can  discover.  It  is  the  province  of  the  psychologica 
faculty  of  judgment  to  discover  relations.  This  was  per 
ceived  by  Locke,  who  gave  an  excellent  classification  of  tin 
relations,  making  them,  however,  relations  between  idea 
which  we  are  capable  of  discerning,  and  not  things.  Hum- 
also  gives  the  mind  a  power  of  discovering  relations,  anc 
gives  a  good  enumeration  of  them,  endeavoring  all  the  time 
to  explain  them  away  by  showing  that  the  relations  ar<j 
simply  between  impressions  or  ideas  which  imply  n 
realities.1  It  was  in  this  way  that  Hume  carried  out  hi j 

■ - j 

1  Locke  speaks  of  relations  as  being  innumerable,  and  mention 

Cause  and  Effect,  Time,  Place,  Identity  and  Diversity,  Proportion  an. 
Moral  Relations  (Essay  II.  28).  Hume  mentions  Resemblance,  Identity! 


TRANSCENDENTAL  ANALYTIC. 


33 


scepticism.  As  lie  began  with  impressions  and  ideas  im¬ 
plying  no  object  perceived  or  mind  perceiving  it,  be  goes 
on  to  make  the  understanding  to  deal  entirely  with  these. 
Kant,  as  the  professed  opponent  of  scepticism,  should  have 
:  met  Hume  at  this  point.  But  he  has  not.  He  first  gave 
the  sceptic  an  entrance  by  the  senses ;  he  now  allows  him  a 
place  in  the  understanding,  and  it  will  be  found  difficult  to 
expel  him. 

Equally  with  space  and  time  the  categories  are  forms. 
They  have  their  seat  and  power  in  the  mind.  The  forms 
of  sense  were  imposed  by  the  mind  on  appearances ;  the 
forms  of  the  understanding — this  is,  the  categories — arc 
imposed  on,  and  give  them  their  unity.  The  question  with 
me,  what  is  the  reality  implied  in  the  judgments  of  the 
understanding  ?  Already  the  reality  has  very  much  dis¬ 
appeared.  In  the  intuitions  of  the  senses  there  had  been 
so  much  of  a  reality  as  is  implied  in  the  appearances  which, 
however,  have  always  a  priori  forms  imposed  on  them. 
How,  the  judgment  is  pronounced  on  this  complex  of 
appearance  and  intuition,  and  the  reality  has  all  but 
vanished.  The  categories  are  “  nothing  but  mere  forms  of 
thought,  which  contain  only  the  logical  faculty  of  uniting 
a  priori  in  consciousness  the  manifold  given  in  intuition. 
Apart  from  the  only  intuition  possible  for  us,  they  have 
still  less  meaning  than  the  pure  sensuous  forms,  space  and 
time ;  for  through  them  an  object  is  at  least  given,  while  a 
mode  of  connection  of  the  manifold,  when  the  intuition 
which  alone  gives  the  manifold  is  wanting,  has  no  meaning 
at  all”  (Trans.,  p.  184). 

This  is  not,  as  it  appears  to  me,  the  natural  or  the  true 

Space  and  Time,  Quantity,  Degree,  Contrariety,  Cause  and  Effect. 
Keeping  these  lists  before  me,  I  make  them  Identity,  Comprehension 
Whole  and  Parts,  Resemblance,  Space,  Time,  Quantity,  Active  Prop¬ 
erty,  Cause  and  Effect  (In, tuitions,  F.  II.  B.  III.). 


34  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

account.  I  hold  that  the  mind,  first  by  its  cognitive  power 
of  sense,  external  and  internal,  knows  things,  and  then  by 
the  understanding  or  comparative  powers  discovers  various 
kinds  of  relations  between  things.  Of  course,  if  the  things 
be  imaginary  the  relations  may  also  be  imaginary.  Thus 
we  may  say  that  Yenus  was  more  beautiful  than  Minerva, 
and  both  the  terms  and  the  propositions  are  unreal.  But 
when  the  intuitions  are  of  realities,  when  I  am  speaking  of 
Demosthenes  and  Cicero,  and  declare  Demosthenes  a  greater 
orator  than  Cicero,  there  is  a  reality  both  in  the  terms  and 
the  propositions. 

Here  it  will  be  necessary  to  correct  an  error  into  which 
the  whole  school  of  Kant  has  fallen.  They  deny  that  the 
understanding  has  any  power  of  intuition,  der  Yerstand 
can  not  intuite.  I  maintain,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  has,  the 
statement  being  properly  explained  and  understood.  The 
comparative  powers  presuppose  a  previous  knowledge  of 
things  by  the  senses  and  consciousness,  and  they  give  us  no 
new  things.  But  having  such  a  knowledge,  the  mind,  by 
barely  looking  at  the  things  apprehended,  may  discover  a 
relation  between  them,  and  this  intuitively  by  bare  inspec¬ 
tion,  without  any  derivative,  mediate,  or  discursive  process. 
Thus  understood,  we  may  have  intuitive  or  primitive  judg¬ 
ments  as  well  as  perceptions.  These  constitute  an  important 
part  of  the  original ,  furniture  of  the  mind,  and  should  be 
included  in  our  inventory. 

Taking  the  category  of  cause  and  effect  as  an  example, 
let  me  exhibit  the  difference  between  the  view  elaborated 
by  Kant  and  that  which  I  take.  Ye  affirm  that  the  cause 
of  that  rick  of  hay  taking  fire  was  a  lucifer-match  applied 
to  it.  What  have  we  here  ?  According  to  Kant,  a  rick  or 
an  appearance,  partly  d  posteriori  with  a  certain  color,  and 
partly  d  priori  with  a  form  given  it.  We  have  also  a 
lucifer-match  with  a  like  double  character,  d  priori  and  d 


TRANSCENDENTAL  ANALYTIC. 


35 


posteriori.  We  unite  the  two  by  means  of  an  d  priori 
category,  that  of  cause  and  effect,  and  declare  the  lucifer- 
match  to  be  the  cause  of  the  conflagration.  Is  this 
the  real  mental  process?  Let  me  give  in  contrast  what 
I  believe  to  be  the  true  account.  We  have  first  the 
rick  as  a  reality,  and  then  the  match  as  a  reality,  both 
known  by  the  senses  and  information  we  have  had 
about  them.  On  looking  at  the  rick  and  discovering  a 
change,  we  intuitively  look  for  a  cause,  and  on  considering 
the  properties  of  the  lucifer-match,  we  decide  that  it  is  fit 
to  be  the  cause.  We  have  thus  realities  throughout,  both 
j  the  original  objects  and  the  relations  between  them. 

Kant  is  constantly  telling  us  that  the  function  of  the 
categories  is  to  give  a  unity  to  the  perceptions  compared. 
But  let  us  understand  what  is  or  should  be  meant  by  this. 
It  ought  not  to  signify  that  the  unity  is  an  identity  this 
was  the  conclusion  to  which  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel 
sought  to  drive  the  doctrine  of  Kant  on  this  subject.  What 
we  should  understand  is  simply  that  the  unity  is  one  of 
relation,  say  of  space,  of  quantity,  of  causation.  Little  or  no 
information  is  given  us  by  saying  that  intuitions  or  notions 
are  brought  to  a  unity  unless  it  is  told  us  in  respect  of  what 
they  are  one,  that  is,  by  what  relation,  say  by  resemblance 
by  time  or  whatever  else.  It  should  be  understood  that  the 
oneness  indicated  is  merely  one  in  respect  of  that  relation, 

which  should  always  be  expressed. 

I  announced  at  the  opening  of  this  paper  that  in  my  criti¬ 
cism  I  was  to  proceed  only  on  what  is  admitted  by  all  as  to  the 
meaning  of  Kant.  At  the  part  of  his  great  work  to  which 
we  have  now  come  there  are  several  disputed  points,  and, 
however  tempted,  I  do  not  mean  to  discuss  these. .  In 
treating  of  the  categories  he  brings  an  d  priori  ‘I  think’ 
called  an  apperception— as  running  through  all  our  judg¬ 
ments  and  imparting  a  unity  to  them.  There  is  truth 


36  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

here,  but  it  is  not  accurately  unfolded.  The  correct  statement 
is :  By  self-consciousness  we  know  self  in  its  present  state,  say 
as  thinking,  and  this  knowledge  of  self  goes  on  with  all  our 
states,  and,  among  others,  the  acts  of  the  understanding  in 
judgment. 

He  calls  in  an  d  priori  use  of  imagination  and  a  schema- 
tismus.  Both  are  meant  to  bridge  over  gaps  in  his  system.  i 
It  is  true  that  if  an  object  be  absent  and  we  have  to  think  I 
of  it,  we  must  have  an  image,  or  what  Aristotle  calls  a  ; 
phantasm  of  it,  and  the  mind  can  put  these  phantasms  in 
all  sorts  of  forms.  Kant  brings  in  an  d  priori  imagination 
to  represent  to  the  judgment  the  manifold  of  the  senses  in 
unity.  I  regard  it  as  an  important  function  of  the  phantasy 
to  represent  absent  or  imaginary  objects  to  the  understand¬ 
ing  to  judge  of  them.  The  office  of  the  schematism  is  to 
show  how  the  categories,  which  are  d priori  forms,  are  ap-  j 
plicable  to  the  empirical  intuitions  of  sense.  I  do  not  need 
such  an  intermediary,  as  I  hold  that  the  mind  can  at  once 
know  things  and  the  relations  of  things. 

At  the  close  of  the  Analytic,  Kant  lays  down  a  number 
of  principles  which  follow  from  his  theory  and  seem  to  \ 
confirm  it.  VV  e  have  Axioms  of  Intuition,  Anticipations 
of  Perception,  Analogies  of  Experience,  The  Postulates  of 
Empirical  Thought.  These  are  not  essential  parts  of  his 
system,  and  have  no  value  to  those  who  do  not  adopt  them. 

I  think  it  expedient,  therefore,  to  omit  the  discussion  of 
them,  as  in  no  way  helping,  in  one  way  or  other,  the  con¬ 
troversy  about  the  idealism  of  Kant. 

He  is  now  prepared  to  give  us  a  division  of  all  objects 
into  Phenomena  and  Houmena.  His  account  of  each  and 
of  the  relation  between  them  is  very  unsatisfactory.  Of  f 
the  first  it  is  supposed  that  we  know  only  appearances 
which  do  not  correspond  to  realities.  Of  the  second  we  know 
that  they  exist,  but  then  they  are  unknown  and  unknowa- 


TRANSCENDENTAL  DIALECTIC. 


37 


i 


ble.  Nothing  but  agnosticism  can  issue  logically  and  prac¬ 
tically  from  such  a  doctrine.  How  much  more  natural  and 
reasonable  to  regard  the  phenomenon  as  a  thing  appearing 
and  so  far  known,  as  in  fact  a  noumenon  implying  intel¬ 
ligence. 

Transcendental  Dialectic. 

Dialectic  was  a  method  introduced  by  Zeno,  the  Eleatic, 
and  followed  by  Socrates,  who  established  truth  by  discus¬ 
sion  in  which  division,  definition,  and  the  law  of  contra¬ 
diction  played  an  important  part.  Aristotle  used  the  phrase 
to  describe  the  logic  of  the  probable  as  distinguished  from 
the  apodictic.  The  dialectics  of  Kant  estimate  the  reality 
to  be  found  in  the  exercises  of  reason.  He  arrives  at  the 
conclusion  that  these  all  end,  not  just  in  deceit,  but  m  illu¬ 
sion.  He  has  been  laboriously  building  a  mighty  fabric ; 
but  he  now  proceeds  to  pluck  it  down  with  his  own  hands. 
At  this  point  he  is  guilty  of  intellectual  suicide.  He  is  de¬ 
scribed  by  Sir  W.  Hamilton  as  the  dialectical  Samson,  who, 
in  pulling  down  the  house  upon  others,  has  also  pulled  it 

down  upon  himself. 

The  professor  of  Logic  at  Konigsberg  was  nothing  it  not 
logical.  Beginning  with  intuition  he  has  gone  on  to  the 
Notion  and  Judgment,  and  now  rises  to  Reasoning  beyond 
der  Yerstand  to  die  Yernunft.  All  his  critics  think  that, 
strange  as  it  may  seem  of  one  who  has  studied  Reason  so 
profoundly,  he  confounds  what  most  of  our  deeper  philoso¬ 
phers  have  distinguished,  reason  and  reasoning— the  first  o 
which  perceives  certain  truths— such  as  the  axioms  of  Eu¬ 
clid  immediately,  whereas  the  other  deduces  a  conclusion 
from  premises.  As  the  forms  of  space  and  time  give  unity 
to  the  manifold  of  the  senses,  and  the  categories  give  unity 
to  our  perceptions,  so  reason  or  reasoning  gives  a  um  y  o 
the  judgments.  The  form  which  gives  tins  unity  m  called 
by  him  an  Idea.  All  human  cognition  begins  with  intui- 


38  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

tion,  proceeds  from  thence  to  conceptions,  and  ends  with 
ideas.  This  word  Idea  is  one  of  the  vaguest  terms  used  in 
metaphysics.  Introduced  into  philosophy  by  Plato,  who 
signifies  by  it  the  TtapaSsiyya  in  or  before  the  mmd,  it 
had  a  different  meaning  attached  to  it  by  Descartes  and 
Locke,  the  latter  of  whom  makes  it  the  object  of  the  un¬ 
derstanding  when  it  thinks ;  and  now  it  embraces  in  popular 
use  nearly  every  mental  apprehension,  and  in  particular 
two  such  different  things  as  the  individual  image  or  phan¬ 
tasm,  say  of  a  rose,  and  the  general  notion  as  the  class  rose. 
Kant  employs  it  in  a  sense  of  his  own  to  denote  the  form 
which  gives  unity  (a  vague  enough  phrase,  as  we  have  seen) 
to  the  Categories. 

Reason,  according  to  Kant,  takes  three  forms  Categor¬ 
ical,  Conditional,  Disjunctive.  This  may  be  true  of  rea¬ 
soning,  but  is  certainly  not  true  of  Pure  Reason.  As  to 
reasoning,  I  hold  that  it  is  always  one  and  the  same.  But 
it  does  take  the  three  forms  spoken  of  by  Kant,  and  I  look 
on  the  division  of  Kant  as  founded  on  fact.  But  I  leckon 
the  use  of  it  by  him  as  artificial  in  the  extreme. 

The  Fokmb  of  Reasoning. 

Categorical,  Conditional,  Disjunctive. 

The  Binding  Ideas. 

Substance,  Interdependence  of  Phenomena,  God. 

It  is  hard  to  discover  how  the  Ideas  as  forms  give  the 
Reasoning,  or  how  the  Ideas  are  given  by  the  Reasoning. 
In  particular,  his  derivation  of  God  from  Disjunctive  Rear 
soning  seems  to  me  very  constrained.  Ko  doubt  Disjunc¬ 
tive  Reasoning,  which  proceeds  by  Division,  implies  a  unity 
in  the  thing  divided.  But  it  is  scarcely  reverent  to  desig¬ 
nate  it  God.  This  may  seem  pious,  but  it  is  not  so ;  I 
wish  he  had  called  it  by  some  other  name.  The  God  who 
is  the  issue  of  this  logical  process  is  not  the  living  and  the 


TRANSCENDENTAL  DIALECTIC.  o» 

true  God.  Certainly  no  one  could  cherish  love  towards 
such  a  product.  It  turns  out  that  this  God  is  discarded 
and  cast  out  as  peremptorily  as  he  has  been  brought  m. 

But  my  search  is  after  the  reality,  supposed  to  be  in 
i  these  ideas.  What  reality  remains,  except,  indeed,  a  sub¬ 
jective  reality  implying  an  objective  existence?  Is  it  not 
virtually  gone  ?  The  light  has  been  reflected  from  mirror 
to  mirror,  till  now  nothing  definable  is  left.  There  was 
a  sort  of  reality,  phenomenal  and  subjective,  in  the 
intuition ;  this  had  still  an  attached  reality  in  the  judgment. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  detect  it,  and  impossible  to  determine 
what  it  is  in  the  third  transformation— a  reality  or  an  illu¬ 
sion,  a  something  or  a  nothing,  a  shadow  or  a  reflection  of 
a  shadow.  Kant  acknowledges,  “  The  categories  never  mis¬ 
lead  us,  object  being  always  in  perfect  harmony  therewith, 
whereas  ideas  are  the  parents  of  irresistible  illusions 
(Trans.,  p.  394).  These  illusions  are  like  the  concave  shape 
we  give  the  sky ;  like  the  rising,  rounded  form  we  give  the 
ocean  when  we  stand  on  the  shore ;  like  the  foam  made  by 
1  the  waters,  which  we  may  wipe  away,  only  to  find  it  gather 
again.  Kant  is  still  pursuing  the  reality,  the  Ding  an  sick, 

|  but  it  is  as  the  boy  pursues  the  rainbow,  without  ever 
1  catching  it.  He  argues  powerfully  that  if  we  suppose  these 
ideas  to  be  realities  we  fall  into  logical  fallacies. 

Substance.— If  from  the  intuitions  of  sense  or  the  cate¬ 
gories  of  the  understanding  we  suppose  substance  to  be 
real  we  have  a  paralogism — that  is  more  in  the  conclusion 
than  is  justified  by  the  premises.  This  is  undoubtedly  true 
if  we  regard  our  primitive  intuitions  as  appearances  and  not 
things,  and  the  categories  as  having  to  do  solely  with  ap¬ 
pearances.  Kant  examines  the  cogito  ergo  sum  of  Descartes. 
If  the  ego  is  in  the  cogito  we  have  no  inference,  but  mere  y 
a  reassertion.  If  the  ego  is  not  in  the  cogito ,  then  the  con- 


40  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


elusion  does  not  follow — we  have  a  paralogism ;  we  have 
only  an  appearance  and  not  a  thing.  I  have  a  very  decided 
opinion  that  we  should  not  try  to  prove  the  existence  of 
self,  or  of  body,  by  mediate  reasoning.  We  should  assume 
the  existence  of  ego  cogitans  as  made  known  by  self-con¬ 
sciousness,  and  also  of  body  as  extended  and  resisting  our 
energy  by  the  senses.  We  know  both  mind  and  body  as 
having  Being,  Potency,  and  as  having  Objective  Existence, 
and  not  created  by  our  contemplating  them,  and  this  makes 
them  substances. 


\ 

i 


Interdependence  of  Phenomena. — Under  this  head  he 
maintains  that  we  are  landed  in  contradictions  or  anti¬ 
nomies,  that  is,  if  we  look  on  the  Ideas  as  implying  things. 
He  resolves  the  contradictions  by  showing  that*  we  are  not 
to  imagine  that  what  we  can  affirm  and  can  prove  to  be  con¬ 
tradictory  in  phenomena  is  necessarily  so  of  things.  Those 
of  us  who  hold  that  the  mind  knows  things  have  to  meet 
these  contradictions.  This  we  do  by  showing  that  the 
counter  propositions  in  some  cases  are  not  proven,  and  that 
in  other  cases  the  alleged  contradictions  are  merely  in  Our 
own  mutilated  statements,  and  not  in  the  things  themselves, 
or  our  native  convictions  about  them. 


First  Antinomy. 

The  world  has  a  beginning  in  The  world  has  no  beginning  in 
time  and  is  limited  as  to  space.  time,  and  no  limits  in  space,  but 

is  in  regard  to  both  infinite. 

Now  upon  this  I  have  to  remark,  first,  that  as  to  the  “world”  we 
have,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  no  intuition  whatever.  We  have  merely 
an  intuition  as  to  certain  things  in  the  world,  or,  it  may  be,  out  of  the  1 
world.  Our  reason  does  declare  that  space  and  time  are  infinite,  but  I 
it  does  not  declare  whether  the  world  is  or  is  not  infinite  in  extent  and 
duration.  j 


transcendental  dialectic. 


41 


Second  Antinomy. 

Every  composite  substance  con-  No  composite  thing  can  consist 


of  simple  parts,  and  there  can 
not  exist  in  the  world  any  simple 
substance. 


There  is  no  such  thing  as  free¬ 
dom,  but  everything  in  the  world 
happens  according  to  the  laws  of 
nature. 


3ists  of  simple  parts,  and  all  that 
exists  must  either  be  simple  or 
composed  of  simple  parts. 

Onr  reason  says  nothing  as  to  whether  things  are  or  are  not  made  up 
of  simple  substances.  Experience  can  not  settle  the  question 
by  Kant  in  one  way  or  other.  We  find  certam  things  composite  these 
Je  know  are  made  up  of  parts  ;  but  we  can  not  say  how  far  the  de¬ 
composition  may  extend,  or  what  is  the  nature  of  the  furthest  elements 

reached. 

Third  Antinomy. 

Causality,  according  to  the  laws 
of  nature,  is  not  the  only  causality 
operating  to  originate  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  the  world ;  to  account 
for  the  phenomena  we  must  have 
a  causality  of  freedom. 

Here  I  think  reason  does  sanction  two  sets  of  facts  :  One  is  the  exist- 
enS  ;  the  other  is  the  universe!  prev=  *>me  sort  .ot 

causation,  which  may  differ,  however,  in  every different  kind  o 

Thpse  mav  be  so  stated  as  to  be  contradictory.  But  our  con 

victions  in  themselves  involve  no  contradiction ;  it 

that  they  do  by  the  law  of  contradiction,  which  is  that  A  _ 

Not  A  ”  “  There  is  some  sort  of  causation  even  1  J  > 

Sftta  wih  is  free-  no  one  can  show  that  toe  two  propostttons 

are  contradictory. 

Fourth  Antinomy. 

There  exists  in  the  world,  or  in  An  absolutely  necessaj  bang 

connection  with  it,  as  a  part  or  as  doe.  not  exist,  ettemftew 

the  cause  of  it,  an  absolutely  nec-  or  out  of  .1,  as  the  cause 

essary  being.  world-  , 

Our  reason  seems  to  say  that  time  and  space  must  have  ever  existed 

either  by  reason  or  experience  intuitions  will  show 

A  little  patient  investigation  ol  our  actual  uih 


42  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


that  all  these  contradictions,  of  which  the  Kantians  and  Hegelians 
make  so  much,  are  not  in  our  constitutions  but  in  the  ingenious  struc¬ 
tures  fashioned  by  metaphysicians  to  support  their  theories. 

It  is  often  urged  as  a  powerful  argument  in  favor  of  Kant’s  phe¬ 
nomenal  theory  that  it  enables  us  to  see  that  there  may  be  no  inconsist¬ 
ency  between  the  universal  reign  of  causality  and  the  freedom  of  the 
will ;  for  both  are  to  be  regarded  as  laws  of  the  phenomenal  and  not 
the  real  world.  But  all  this  shows,  not  that  the  will  is  free  in  the  real 
world,  but  merely  that  it  may  be  free ;  while  we  are  obliged  to  look 
upon  it  as  not  free  in  this  world  of  appearances  in  which  we  live.  It  is 
surely  much  more  satisfactory  to  show  that  in  the  real  world  it  is  free 
and  that  it  can  not  be  proven  that  there  is  a  contradiction  between  this 
fact  and  the  law  of  causation  properly  explained. 

The  Theistic  Arguments. — He  has  a  well-known  three¬ 
fold  classification  of  them :  the  Ontological,  the  Cosmolog¬ 
ical,  and  the  Pliysico-Theological.  I  have  no  partiality  for 
the  first  two.  The  first  is,  that  from  the  idea  of  the  perfect 
in  the  mind  we  may  argue  the  existence  of  a  perfect  being. 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  idea  of  the  perfect  implies  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  a  corresponding  being,  though  it  prepares  us  for 
receiving  the  evidence  and  enables  us  to  clothe  the  Divine 
Being  shown  on  other  grounds  to  exist,  with  perfection.  In 
regard  to  the  second,  which  infers  from  the  bare  existence 
of  a  thing  that  it  has  a  cause,  I  am  not  prepared,  from  the  bare 
existence  of  a  handful  of  sand,  or  a  piece  of  clay,  to  argue  that 
it  must  have  had  a  Divine  Cause.  But  I  hold  that  the  third, 
more  frequently  called  the  Teleological,  the  argument  from 
design,  is  conclusive  if  properly  stated.  Kant  can  not  ac¬ 
knowledge  its  validity,  simply  because  it  implies  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  cause  and  effect,  which  he  regards  as  applying  only 
to  appearances,  and  having  merely  a  subjective  value.  But 
when  we  hold  that  the  things  in  the  world  are  real,  and 
discover  so  wonderful  an  adjustment  among  them  to  pro¬ 
duce  a  good  end,  say  of  rays  of  light,  muscles,  coats  and 
humors,  cones  and  nerves  to  enable  us  to  see,  then  we  are 
entitled  to  argue  a  real  cause  in  a  designer,  whom  the  idea 


THE  PRACTICAL  REASON. 


43 


of  the  perfect  in  the  mind  constrains  us  to  clothe  with 
infinity. 

The  objection  taken  to  all  this,  is  that  from  a  finite  effect, 
say  of  a  wonderful  combination  of  tilings  to  accomplish  an 
end,  we  can  not  argue  an  infinite  cause.  I  believe  no  man 
ever  said  that  we  can.  All  that  the  design  proves  is  a  de¬ 
signer,  and  it  is  from  the  idea  of  the  infinite  in  the  mind 
that  we  clothe  him  with  infinity,  just  as  it  is  from  our 
moral  nature,  as  Kant  admits,  that  we  clothe  him  with 
moral  perfection. 

The  Practical  Reason. 

The  part  of  the  Kantian  philosophy  which  is  the  strong¬ 
est  and  healthiest  is  the  ethical.  No  writer  in  ancient  or 
modern  times  has  stood  up  more  resolutely  for  an  inde¬ 
pendent  morality.  There  may,  he  thinks,  be  legitimate 
disputes  as  to  what  things  are,  and  the  speculative  reason 
may  lead  to  illusions,  but  the  moral  power  comes  in  to  save 
us  from  scepticism.  He  finds  here  a  moral  reason  by 
which  the  good  is  perceived,  not  as  a  phenomenon  by 
superimposed  forms,  but  directly.  This  reason  takes  the 
form  of  a  Categorical  Imperative,  which  seems  to  me  a  most 
admirable  designation,  bringing  into  view  at  one  and  the 
same  time  the  affirmative  and  obligatory  character  of  mo¬ 
rality.  The  law  which  it  sanctions  is  a  modification  of  the 
supreme  ethical  law  laid  down  by  our  Lord,  and  is !  Act 
according  to  a  rule  applicable  to  all  intelligences.  This 
implies  that  man  is  free  and  responsible,  and  as  a  corol¬ 
lary,  that  he  is  responsible,  that  there  is  a  judgment  day 
and  a  future  life,  and  a  God  to  guarantee  the  whole.  Mo¬ 
rality,  immortality,  and  God  are  thus  indissolubly  bound 
together. 

I  confess  I  should  like  to  have  this  whole  connected  ar¬ 
gument  expressed  in  language  not  involving  any  peculiarly 


44  a  criticism:  of  the  critical  philosophy. 

Kantian  phraseology  and  principles.  In  particular,  great 
good  would  be  done  by  a  psychological  account  of  the 
Practical  Reason,  and  by  an  explanation  and  defence  of 
the  precise  nexus  between  the  moral  law  and  the  existence 
of  God.  This  is  eminently  needed  in  the  present  day,  when 
the  common  sentiment  is  sensitively  averse  to  the  nomen¬ 
clature  and  abstractions  of  high  metaphysical  philosophy. 

It  was  argued  at  an  early  date  after  the  publication  of 
Kant’s  great  work,  that  if  the  speculative  reason  may  de¬ 
ceive  by  leading  us  into  illusions,  the  moral  reason  may  do 
the  same.  I  believe  that  the  phenomenal  and  illusory  prin¬ 
ciples  of  the  Kritik  of  the  Pure  Reason,  if  carried  out  in  a 
Kritik  of  the  Practical  Reason  would  undermine  morality. 
It  seems  to  me  very  clear  that  we  must  proceed  on  the 
same  principles  in  expounding  intelligence  and  truth  as  we 
do  in  defending  morality.  I  am  _  convinced  that  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  his  ethics,  if  carried  into  the  region  of  the  specu¬ 
lative  reason,  would  establish  positive  truth,  without  illu¬ 
sions  of  any  kind.  Surely  the  Practical  Reason,  according 
to  Kant,  has  a  power  of  intuition:  it  at  once  perceives 
moral  good.  I  think  that  on  like  evidence  he  should  have 
called  in,  and  appealed  to,  certain  intuitions  of  intelligence 
which  look  at  things  and  guarantee  reality.  Had  he  done 
so,  we  should  have  had  as  firm  a  foundation  for  truth  as 

he  has  furnished  for  morality. 

I  believe  that  Kant  has  substantially  established  his 
moral  positions.  -  They  can  not  be  assailed,  except  on 
grounds  which  Kant  himself  unfortunately  furnished. 
Kant  admitted,  in  fact  argued,  that  the  speculative  reason 
led  to  illusions,  indeed  to  contradictions,  on  the  supposition 
that  we  know  things,  and  then  brought  in  the  moral  reason 
to  bring  us  back  to  truth  and  certainty.  The  nsk  m  all 
such  procedure  is,  that  those  led  into  the  slough  may  be 
caught  there  and  go  no  farther.  For  if  the  speculative 


THE  PRACTICAL  REASON". 


45 


reason  may  gender  illusions,  what  reason  have  we  for  think¬ 
ing  that  the  practical  reason  gives  us  only  truth  ?  I  do  not 
admire  the  wisdom  of  those  who  first  make  men  infidels  in 
order  to  shut  them  into  truth— as  they  feel  the  blankness  of 
nihilism. 

It  was  in  mockery  that  Hume,  after  showing  that  reason 
leads  into  contradictions,  allowed  religious  men  to  appeal 
to  faith.  There  was  far  less  shrewdness  shown  by  those 
philosophers  in  the  age  following,  who,  after  allowing  that 
the  intellect  leads  to  scepticism,  fell  back  with  Jacobi  and 
Rousseau  (who  was  a  favorite  with  Kant)  on  an  ill-defined 
faith  or  feeling.  The  pursuing  hound  which  had  caught 
and  tom  to  pieces  the  understanding,  having  tasted  blood, 
became  more  infuriated,  and  went  on  to  attack  and  devour 
the  belief  or  sentiment.  It  is  of  vast  moment,  both  logi¬ 
cally  and  practically,  to  uphold  the  reason  in  discovering 
truth,  if  we  would  defend  the  reason  in  discovering  the 
good]  I  deny  that  the  reason  ever  lands  us  in  contradic¬ 
tions  or  leads  into  error  or  even  illusion.  In  the  antinomies 
the  mistakes  are  all  in  our  own  statements,  and  not  in  the 
dictates  of  our  nature.  The  intellect  does  not  lead  to  all 
truth,  but  if  properly  guided  it  conducts  to  a  certain 
amount  of  truth,  clear,  well  established,  and  sure.  Begin¬ 
ning  with  realities,  it  adds  to  these  indefinitely  by  induc¬ 
tion  and  by  thought.  The  speculative  reason  properly 
employed,  so  far  from  conflicting  with  and  weakening 
moral  reason,  confirms  and  strengthens  it. 

Proceeding  in  our  inductive  method,  with  criticism 
merely  as  a  subordinate  means,  we  keep  clear  of  that 
heresy  into  which  the  Kantians  have  fallen  of  making  a 
schism  in  the  body — which  in  this  case  is  not  the  church, 
but  the  mind.  I  can  not  allow  that  one  part  or  organ  of 
our  nature  leads  to  error,  and  another  to  truth.  I  hope  we 
have  done  with  that  style  of  sentiment,  so  common  an  age 


46  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

or  two  ago,  which  lamented  in  so  weakly  a  manner,  often 
with  a  vast  amount  of  affectation,  that  reason  led  to  scepti¬ 
cism,  from  which  we  are  saved  by  faith,  and  which  was 
greatly  strengthened  by  Kant’s  doctrine  of  the  practical 
reason  coming  in  to  counteract  the  illusion  of  the  speculative 
reason.  The  account  I  have  given  above  makes  every  part 
of  our  nature  correspond  to  and  conspire  with  every  other. 
It  does  more— it  makes  every  faculty  of  the  mind  yield  its 
testimony  to  its  Divine  author.  The  understanding  collat¬ 
ing  the  facts  in  nature  and  observing  the  collocations  therein, 
and  proceeding  on  its  own  inherent  law  of  cause  and  effect, 
which  I  represent  as  having  an  objective  value,  furnishes  the 
argument  from  design  for  God’s  existence.  Then  our  moral 
nature  comes  in,  and  reveals  a  law  above  us  and  binding  on 
us,  and  clothes  the  intelligence  which  we  have  discovered 
with  love.  I  admit  that  the  finite  works  of  God  do  not 
prove  God  to  be  infinite.  I  repeat,  no  one  ever  said  that 
they  did.  But  this  circumstance  has  made  Kant  and  his 
school  insist  that  thereby  the  theistic  argument  is  made  in¬ 
valid.  But  as  we  call  in  our  moral  nature  to  clothe  God 
with  rectitude,  so  we  call  in  that  idea  of  the  infinite,  the 
perfect,  which  the  mind  has,  and  which  was  fondly  dwelt 
on  by  Anselm,  Descartes,  and  Leibnitz,  to  clothe  him  with 
infinity.  Our  nature  is  thus  a  harmoniously  constructed 
instrument,  raising  a  hymn  to  its  Creator. 

The  Kkjtik  of  the  Judging  Faculty. 

Kant  brings  in  this  power  (Urtheilskraft)  in  a  very  awk¬ 
ward  manner.  He  had  previously  spoken  of  Judgment  in 
the  ordinary  logical  sense,  and  shown  that  it  is  regulated 
by  Categories.  He  now  brings  in  an  entirely  different 
kind  of  Judgment.  Its  office  is  to  mediate  between  the 
Keason  and  the  Understanding,  as  if  they  had  had  a  quar¬ 
rel.  It  is  brought  in  to  fill  up  a  gap,  not  in  the  mind,  but 


COMPARED  WITH  SCOTTISH  PHILOSOPHY.  47 


in  his  system,  which  had  overlooked  certain  very  prominent 
exercises  of  the  soul.  It  is  one  of  the  abutments  which  he 
is  ever  adding  to  enable  him  to  give  a  place  to  all  the  men¬ 
tal  phenomena  and  to  support  his  edifice.  In  this  work  he 
treats  of  Final  Cause  and  Beauty  in  nature.  He  advances 
some  views  as  true  as  they  are  beautiful.  I  do  not  mean 
to  criticise  his  theories,  as  they  form  no  essential  part  of 
his  philosophy.  He  follows  his  old  tendencies  and  makes 
final  cause  and  beauty  to  be  imposed  on  objects  by  the 
mind.  The  true  account  is  that  they  imply  qualities  in  the 
objects  which  the  mind  perceives.1 

Having  taken  this  general  critical  survey  of  the  philoso¬ 
phy  of  Kant,  it  may  serve  a  good  purpose  to  compare  and 
contrast  it  with  the  Scottish.  Sir  James  Mackintosh  and 
Dr.  Chalmers,  who  were  trained  in  the  Scottish  school, 
upon  becoming  somewhat  acquainted  in  mature  life  with 
the  German  system,  were  greatly  interested  to  notice  the 
points  of  resemblance  between  the  two  philosophies.  The 
two — the  Scotch  and  the  German — agree,  and  they  differ. 
Each  has  a  fitting  representative :  the  one  in  Thomas  Reid 
and  the  other  in  Immanuel  Kant.  The  one  was  a  careful 
observer,  guided  by  common  sense — with  the  meaning  of 
good  sense — suspicious  of  high  speculations  as  sure  to  have 
error  lurking  in  them,  and  shrinking  from  extreme  posi¬ 
tions  ;  the  other  was  a  powerful  logician,  a  great  organizer 
and  systematizer,  following  his  principles  to  their  conse¬ 
quences,  which  he  was  ever  ready  to  accept,  avow,  and  pro¬ 
claim.  The  two  have  very  important  points  of  agreement. 
Reid  and  Kant  both  lived  to  oppose  Hume,  the  great  scep¬ 
tic,  or,  as  he  would  be  called  in  the  present  day,  agnostic. 

1 1  may  state  that  I  have  expounded  my  views  of  Final  Cause  in  No. 
II.  of  this  Series,  and  of  Beauty  in  The  Emotions,  B.  III.,  c.  8. 


48  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


Both  met  him  by  calling  in  great  mental  principles,  which 
reveal  and  guarantee  truth,  which  can  never  be  set  aside, 
and  which  have  foundations  deep  as  the  universe.  Both 
appeal  to  reason,  which  Reid  called  reason  in  the  first  de¬ 
gree,  and  the  other  pure  reason.  The  one  presents  this 
reason  to  us  under  the  name  of  common  sense — that  is,  the 
powers  of  intelligence  common  to  all  men ;  the  other,  as 
principles  necessary  and  universal.  The  one  pointed  to 
laws,  native  and  fundamental ;  the  other,  to  forms  in  the 
mind.  The  one  carefully  observed  these  by  consciousness, 
and  sought  to  unfold  their  nature ;  the  other  determined 
their  existence  by  a  criticism,  and  professes  to  give  an  in¬ 
ventory  of  them.  All  students  should  note  these  agree¬ 
ments  as  confirmatory  of  the  truth  in  both. 

The  Scotch  and  German  people  do  so  far  agree,  while 
they  also  differ.  Both  have  a  considerable  amount  of 
broad  sense,  and,  I  may  add,  of  humor ;  but  the  Scotch 
have  greater  clearness  of  thinking,  and  the  Germans  of  at¬ 
tractive  idealism.  Scotland  and  Germany,  in  the  opinion 
of  foreigners,  are  not  very  far  distant  from  each  other. 
But  between  them  there  roars  an  ocean  which  is  often  very 
stormy.  I  proceed  to  specify  the  differences  of  the  two 
philosophies. 

First,  they  differ  in  their  Method.  The  Scotch  follows 
the  Inductive  Method  as  I  have  endeavored  to  explain  it. 
The  German  has  created  and  carried  out  the  Critical 
Method,  which  has  never  been  very  clearly  explained  and 
examined.  It  maintains  that  things  are  not  to  be  accepted 
as  they  appear  ;  they  are  to  be  searched  and  sifted.  Bure 
reason,  according  to  Kant,  can  criticise  itself.  But  every 
criticism  ought  to  have  some  principles  on  which  it  pro¬ 
ceeds.  Kant,  a  professor  of  Logic,  fortunately  adopted  the 
forms  of  Logic  which  I  can  show  had  been  carefully  in¬ 
ducted  by  Aristotle,  and  hence  has  reached  much  truth. 


COMP  ABED  WITH  SCOTTISH  PHILOSOPHY.  49 

Others  have  adopted  other  principles,  and  have  reached 
very  different  conclusions.  The  philosophies  that  have  fol¬ 
lowed  that  of  Kant  in  Germany  have  been  a  series  of  criti¬ 
cisms,  each  speculator  setting  out  with  his  own  favorite 
principle, — say  with  the  universal  ego,  or  intuition,  or  iden¬ 
tity,  or  the  absolute, — and,  carrying  it  out  to  its  conse¬ 
quences,  it  has  become  so  inextricably  entangled,  that  the 
cry  among  young  men  is,  “  Out  of  this  forest,  and  back  to 
the  clearer  ground  occupied  by  Kant.”  The  Scottish  phi¬ 
losophy  has  not  been  able  to  form  such  lofty  speculations  as 
the  Germans,  but  the  soberer  inductions  it  has  made  may 
contain  quite  as  much  truth. 

Secondly,  the  one  starts  with  facts,  internal  and  external, 
revealed  by  the  senses,  inner  and  outer.  It  does  not  pro¬ 
fess  to  prove  these  by  mediate  reasoning :  it  assumes  them, 
and  shows  that  it  is  entitled  to  assume  them ;  it  declares 
them  to  be  self-evident.  The  other,  the  German  school, 
starts  with  phenomena — not  meaning  facts  to  be  explained 
(as  physicists  understand  the  phrase),  but  appearances.  The 
phrase  was  subtilely  introduced  by  Hume,  and  was  unfor¬ 
tunately  accepted  by  Kant.  Let  us,  he  said,  or  at  least 
thought,  accept,  what  Hume  grants,  phenomena,  and  guard 
the  truth  by  mental  forms — forms  of  sense,  understanding, 
and  reason.  Our  knowledge  of  bodies  and  their  actions, 
our  knowledge  even  of  our  minds  and  their  operations,  is 
phenomenal.  Having  assumed  only  phenomena,  he  never 
could  rise  to  anything  else.  Having  only  phenomena  in 
his  premises  he  never  could  reach  realities  in  his  conclu¬ 
sions  except  by  a  palpable  paralogism,  which  he  himself 
saw  and  acknowledged.  We  human  beings  are  phenomena 
in  a  world  of  phenomena.  This  doctrine  has  culminated 
in  the  unknown  and  unknowable  of  Herbert  Spencer,  im¬ 
plying  no  doubt  a  known,  but  which  never  can  be  known 
by  us.  We  all  know  that  Locke,  though  himself  a  most 


50  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


determined  realist,  laid  down  principles  which  led  logically 
to  the  idealism  of  Berkeley.  In  like  manner,  Kant,  though 
certainly  no  agnostic,  has  laid  down  a  principle  in  his  phe¬ 
nomenal  theory  which  has  terminated  logically  in  agnosti¬ 
cism.  We  meet  all  this  by  showing  that  appearances 
properly  understood  are  things  appearing,  and  not  appear¬ 
ances  without  things. 

Thirdly,  the  two  differ  in  that  the  one  supposes  that  our 
perceptive  powers  reveal  to  us  things  as  they  are,  whereas 
the  other  supposes  that  they  add  to  things.  According  to 
Beid  and  the  Scottish  school,  our  consciousness  and  our 
senses  look  at  once  on  real  things ;  not  discovering 
all  that  is  in  them,  hut  perceiving  them  under  the 
aspect  in  which  they  are  presented — say  this  table  as  a 
colored  surface  perceived  by  a  perceiving  mind.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  Kant  and  the  German  school,  the  mind  adds 
to  the  things  by  its  own  forms.  Kant  said  we  perceive  ap¬ 
pearances  under  the  forms  of  space  and  time  superimposed 
by  the  mind,  and  judge  by  categories,  and  reach  higher 
truth  by  ideas  of  pure  reason,  all  of  them  subjective. 
Fichte  gave  consistency  to  the  whole  by  making  these  same 
forms  create  things. 

Our  thinking  youth  in  the  English  and  French  speaking 
countries  having  no  very  influential  philosophy  at  this 
present  time,  and  no  names  to  rule  them,  are  taking  long¬ 
ing  looks  towards  Germany.  When  circumstances  admit, 
they  go  a  year  or  two  to  a  German  university — to  Berlin 
or  to  Leipsic.  There  they  get  into  a  labyrinth  of  showy 
and  binding  forms,  and  have  to  go  on  in  the  paths  opened 
to  them.  They  return  with  an  imposing  nomenclature, 
and  clothed  with  an  armor  formidable  as  the  panoply  of 
the  middle  ages.  They  write  papers  and  deliver  lectures 
which  are  read  and  listened  to  with  the  profoundest  rever¬ 
ence — some,  however,  doubting  whether  all  these  distinctions 


VIEW  TO  BE  TAKEN  OF  IT. 


51 


are  as  correct  as  they  are  subtle,  whether  these  speculations 
are  as  sound  as  they  are  imposing.  All  students  may  get 
immeasurable  good  from  the  study  of  the  German  philoso¬ 
phy.  I  encourage  my  students  to  go  to  Germany  for  a 
time  to  study.  But  let  them  meanwhile  maintaiu  their  in¬ 
dependence.  They  may  be  the  better  of  a  clew  to  help 
them  out  of  the  labyrinth  when  they  are  wandering.  The 
children  of  Israel  got  vast  good  in  the  wilderness  as  they 
wandered :  saw  wonders  in  the  pillar  of  cloud  and  fire,  in 
the  waters  issuing  from  the  rock,  and  the  manna  on  the 
ground ;  but  they  longed  all  the  while  to  get  into  a  land 
of  rest,  with  green  fields  and  living  rivers.  We  may  all 
get  incalculable  good  from  German  speculation,  but  let  us 
bring  it  all  to  the  standard  of  consciousness  and  of  fact, 
which  alone  can  give  us  security  and  rest. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  a  large  body  of  speculators  will 
look  down  with  contempt  on  the  sober  views  I  have  been 
expounding,  and  not  think  it  worth  their  while  to  examine 
them.  Metaphysical  youths  from  Britain  and  America, 
who  have  passed  a  year  or  two  at  a  German  university,  and 
have  there  been  listening  to  lectures  in  which  the  speak¬ 
er  passed  along  so  easily,  and  without  allowing  a  word 
of  cross-examination,  such  phrases  as  subject  and.  object, 
form  and  matter,  a  priori  and  a  posteriori ,  real  and 
ideal,  phenomenon  and  noumenon,  will  wonder  that  any 
one  should  be  satisfied  to  stay  on  such  low  ground  as  I  have 
done,  while  they  themselves  are  on  such  elevated  heights. 
But  I  can  bear  their  superciliousness  without  losing  my 
temper,  and  I  make  no  other  retort  than  that  of  Kant  on 
one  occasion,  “that  their  master  is  milking  the  he-goat 
while  they  are  holding  the  sieve.”  I  am  sure  that  the 
agnostics,  whether  of  the  philosophical  or  physiological 
schools,  will  resent  my  attempt  to  give  knowledge  so  firm 
a  foundation.  I  may  not  have  influence  myself  to  stop 


52  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  crowd  which  is  moving  on  so  exultingly ;  I  may  be 
thrown  down  by  the  advancing  cavalcade ;  but  I  am  sure  I 
see  the  right  road  to  which  men  will  have  to  return  sooner 
or  later  ;&and  I  am  satisfied  if  only  I  have  opened  a  gate 
ready  for  those  who  come  to  discover  that  the  end  of  their 
present  broad  path  is  darkness  and  nihilism. 

Some  good  ends  may  be  served  by  explaining  here  those 
correlative  phrases  which  are  passed  on  so  readily  in  Ger¬ 
man  metaphysics,  but  under  which  the  errors  I  have  been 
exposing  lurk.  IBy  Read  is  meant  a  thing  existing  5  by 
Ideal  what  is  created  by  the  mind.  Subject  signifies  the 
mind  contemplating  a  thing ;  Object  a  thing  contemplated. 
This  distinction  does  not  imply  that  the  subject  adds  to 
the  object  what  is  not  in  it.  When  the  two  phrases  are 
together  they  should  be  used  as  correlative.  In  common 
language  the  phrase  Object  is  often  employed  to  denote  a 
thing,  whether  it  be  contemplated  by  the  mind  or  not.  In 
this  latter  sense  subject  does  not  imply  an  object,  nor  ob¬ 
ject  a  subject.  Phenomenon  in  science  means  a  fact  to  be 
explained.  In  German  philosophy  it  means  a  mere  ap¬ 
pearance  which  is  an  abstraction.  The  mind  is  conscious 
not  of  an  appearance,  but  of  a  thing  appearing.  By  Nou- 
menon  is  meant  a  thing  known  or  apprehended,  which 
Kant  regards  as  unknowable  by  human  intelligence.  But 
in  our  realistic  philosophy  we  claim  to  know  things  which 
in  that  sense  are  noumena.  By  d  Priori  is  meant  the 
regulative  principles  which  are  in  the  mind  prior  to  expe 
rience ;  but  this  does  not  imply  that  there  are  ideas  in  the 
mind  prior  to  experience.  By  d  Posteriori  is  signified 
truth  obtained  by  a  gathered  or  inductive  (not  an  indi¬ 
vidual)  experience.  Form  and  Matter  are  such  metaphor¬ 
ical  phrases  that  they  might  be  expediently  abandoned  in 
philosophy.  By  Form,  in  German  metaphysics  is  denoted 
something  imposed  by  the  mind  on  things ;  by  Matter  the 


HIS  IDEALISM. 


53 


things,  commonly  unknown,  on  which  the  Form  is  im¬ 
posed.  If  the  terms  are  to  be  retained,  by  Form  should 
be  meant  the  law  by  which  things  act,  Matter  the  things 
as  obeying  the  law.  All  these  phrases  as  commonly  used 
in  metaphysics  have  an  ideal  tendency. 

IDEALISM  in  thought  and  language  runs  through  and 
through  the  philosophy  of  Kant.  It  appears  first  in  making 
the  mind  give  a  unity  to  the  manifold  perceived  by  the 
senses,  say  to  a  stone,  whereas  the  unity  is  in  the  stone  itself. 
Secondly,  it  supposes  space  and  time  not  to  be  things,  but  to 
be  forms  superinduced  on  things.  Thirdly,  the  relations 
between  objects  are  imposed  on  them  by  the  Categories  of 
the  understanding.  Fourthly,  substance,  interdependence  of 
things,  and  God  himself  are  regarded  as  ideas  without  a 
real  objective  existence.  Fifthly,  Final  cause  and  beauty 
are  a  mere  halo  cast  around  things  by  the  imagination. 

It  has  been  shown  again  and  again  how,  according  to 
the  doctrine  of  development,  which  can  be  traced  in  the 
history  of  philosophy  as  well  as  in  the  natural  sciences,  Fichte 
was  evolved  from  Kant,  and  Schelling  from  Fichte,  and 
Hegel  from  Schelling.  Kant  made  the  mind  create  space 
and  time,  and  all  the  forms  imposed  on  things ;  Fichte, 
who  was  a  pupil  of  Kant  at  one  time,  following  out  his 
principles,  made  the  mind  also — greatly  to  the  annoyance  of 
Kant,  who  disowned  his  disciple — to  create  the  things  in 
space  and  time.  It  was  felt  that  Fichte’s  egoistic  theory 
left  out  one  side  of  the  actual  world,  and  many  rejoiced 
that  Schelling  took  up  the  other  side,  making  the  two 
halves  one  in  a  doctrine  of  absolute  identity.  In  the  con¬ 
struction  of  his  theory,  he  and  those  swayed  by  him  (for 
example,  Principal  Shairp)  pointed  out  many  beautiful  cor¬ 
respondences  between  the  subjective  mind  and  the  actual 
world.  But  the  system  of  Schelling  was  so  evidently  vision¬ 
ary,  and  apparently  pantheistic,  that  a  demand  was  made  to 


54  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


have  it  shown  that  the  prevailing  idealism  has  a  ground  in 
reason ;  and  this  was  the  work  of  Hegel. 

At  more  than  one  period  of  my  life  I  have  toiled  hard 
to  master  the  system  of  Hegel.  But  I  have  failed,  and  am 
willing  to  acknowledge  it.  On  a  very  few  occasions  I  have 
ventured  to  criticise  the  great  thinker — as  he  is  reckoned ; 
but  I  was  told  instantly  that  I  did  not  understand  him,  and 
I  was  restrained  from  prosecuting  the  controversy  by  the 
possibility  that  this  might  be  true.  It  was  at  one  time  re¬ 
ported  that  Hegel  had  said,  that  “  no  man  understands 
me  but  one,  and  he  does  not  understand  me.”  This  is  now 
denied.  But  as  it  is  said  of  Shakespeare’s  pictures  of 
Henry  Y.  and  the  English  kings,  that  if  not  true  they 
might  have  been  true ;  so  it  may  be,  that  if  this  story  about 
Hegel  is  not  true  it  might  have  been  true.  His  system 
seems  to  me  to  be  beyond  measure  unnatural,  and  artificial. 
His  constant  threefold  divisions  which  in  the  end  he  iden¬ 
tifies  with  the  threefold  distinctions  of  the  Divine  nature, 
might  be  carried  on  as  far  as  speculative  intellect  sees  fit  to 
prosecute  it,  but  with  no  correspondence  in  things  external 
or  internal.  Ho  two  of  his  followers  understand  him  alike, 
and  each  charges  his  neighbor  with  misinterpreting  him. 
Scarcely  any  of  them  do  now  profess  to  believe  in  his 
system  throughout ;  but  they  adhere  to  his  dialectic  method 
and  expect  that  what  he  has  left  incomplete  may  be  fin¬ 
ished  by  themselves  or  others.  To  me  a  number  of  his 
favorite  maxims,  as  that  Being  and  Hot  Being  are  identical, 
that  Being  and  Thinking  are  the  same,  and  that  contra¬ 
dictories  may  be  true,  seem  to  me  to  be  a  reductio  ad 
dbsurdum  of  the  whole  system.  It  has  been  my  aim  in 
this  paper  to  undermine  the  Kantian  principles  on  which 
the  whole  fabric  has  been  reared. 

I  am  aware  that  many  revel  with  intense  pleasure  in 
idealism.  I  believe  that  all  minds  may  be  elevated  by  cer- 


AGNOSTICISM. 


55 


tain  forms  of  it.  The  great  constellation  of  genius — in¬ 
cluding  Herder,  Schiller,  and  Goethe,  with  those  poets 
influenced  by  them  in  Great  Britain,  which  appeared  at 
the  end  of  last  century  and  the  beginning  of  this,  got  a 
portion  of  their  light  and  power  from  the  subjective 
German  philosophy.  But  to  keep  ourselves  steady  in 
the  flight  of  the  imagination,  let  us  have  a  clear  per¬ 
ception  of  the  difference  between  the  ideal  and  the  real. 
When  we  rise  to  the  ideal  let  it  ever  be  from  the  real,  to 
which  we  should  always  return  for  stability  and  rest.  It  is 
good  for  us  to  ascend  from  time  to  time  our  great  moun¬ 
tains,  and  we  may  thereby  get  life  and  health  as  well  as  a 
larger  prospect ;  but  it  might  not  be  so  good  always  to  dwell 
on  these  heights  which  may  become  over-stimulating  and 
dizzying.  The  mind  has  the  capacity  of  imagination,  which 
is  a  very  lofty  one,  but  it  has  also  a  power  of  judgment, 
meant  to  steady  the  flights  of  the  fancy.  We  all  wish  to 
see  pictures  of  high  ideal  scenes,  but  we  do  not  regard  these 
as  realities — we  distinguish  between  portraits  and  historical 
paintings.  Let  us  clearly  see  that  poetry  is  not  philosophy. 

AGNOSTICISM. — It  is  proverbial  that  extremes  meet — 
just  as  West  and  East  meet  at  lines  on  our  globe.  Strange  as 
it  may  seem,  while  there  is  idealism  throughout  Kant,  ag¬ 
nosticism  has  also  its  roots  deep  in  his  philosophy.  It 
maintains  resolutely — I  believe  without  sufficient  proof — 
that  there  are  things,  but  it  makes  them  unknown  and  un¬ 
knowable.  Its  very  idealism,  regarded  as  a  philosophy, 
favors  nescience.  It  makes  a  large  portion  of  what  we 
naturally  believe,  to  be  phenomenal  and  illusory.  Follow¬ 
ing  it  out  logically,  people  argue  that  if  the  mind  can  add 
one  qualify  to  things  out  of  its  own  stores,  it  may  add  ten 
or  a  hundred,  till  at  last  we  can  not  tell  what  is  in  things, 
or  whether  there  are  any  things.  Hence  we  find  all  the 


56  A  CEITICISM  OF  THE  CKITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


positivists  and  agnostics,  and  even  the  materialists  of  the 
day,  when  pressed  by  their  adversaries  falling  back  on  the 
forms  and  ideas  of  Kant. 

“Back  to  Kant”  is  the  cry  in  our  day  of  the  younger 
German  school,  re-echoed  by  the  speculative  youths  of  Eng¬ 
land  and  America.  The  cry  is  a  healthy  symptom  on  the 
part  of  those  who  utter  it.  It  shows  that  they  are  becom¬ 
ing  somewhat  anxious  as  to  where  recent  speculation  is 
leading  them ;  as  to  whether  it  is  carrying  them  up  into  an 
ethereal  region  where  they  have  difficulty  in  standing  or 
breathing,  or  dragging  them  down  into  a  swamp  where  the 
air  is  malarial  and  lethal. 

Yes,  I  say,  “Back  to  Kant,”  who  was  a  wiser  man,  and 
held  more  truth  than  those  who  have  been  following  out 
his  principles.  But  when  we  go  back  to  Kant,  let  it  not 
be  to  take  his  fundamental  positions  on  trust.  In  par¬ 
ticular,  we  should,  I  think,  in  the  exercise  of  our  criticism 
abandon  his  critical  method.  If  this  is  not  done  we  shall 
have — as  we  have  had  for  the  last  hundred  years — a  succes¬ 
sion  of  systems,  each  laying  hold  of  and  devouring  its  pred¬ 
ecessor.  We  may  cut  down  the  tree  to  its  roots,  but  if 
we  allow  the  roots  to  remain,  a  new  tree,  or  new  trees  of 
the  same  kind,  will  spring  up.  How  often  have  we  had  a 
new  philosophic  treatise  opening  with  the  statement :  “  At 
this  point  Kant  has  not  followed  certain  principles  to  their 
logical  consequences ;  let  us  do  this  for  him.”  Or,  “  Here 
is  a  principle  which  Kant  has  overlooked;  let  us  introduce 
it  and  build  it  into  the  system.” 

For  the  present  there  is  a  reaction  against  the  building 
of  new  systems  of  philosophy.  The  world  has  become 
weary  of  them.  The  tendency  now  rather  is,  in  the  lec¬ 
tures  of  the  German  universities,  and  in  the  books  written 
in  the  English  language,  to  give  us  histories  of  the  opinions 
held  in  the  past ;  and  we  have  thereby  been  gamers,  as  at- 


BACK  TO  KANT. 


57 


tention  has  been  called  to  the  truth  to  be  found  in  all  our 
higher  philosophies  from  the  time  of  Plato  and  Aristotle 
in  ancient  times,  and  that  of  Descartes  and  Locke  in  later 
times ;  and  at  the  same  time  to  the  errors  both  of  an  ex¬ 
travagant  dogmatism  and  of  a  low  empiricism,  which  it  is 
hoped  may  be  kept  from  ever  appearing  again  by  the  way 
in  which  they  have  been  exposed. 

Yes,  “  Back  to  Kant,”  but  do  not  stop  there.  Back  to 
Reid  with  Hamilton,  back  to  Locke,  back  to  Leibnitz,  back 
to  Descartes,  back  to  Bacon,  back  to  Saint  Thomas  and  Abe¬ 
lard,  back  to  Augustine,  back  to  Marcus  Aurelius,  back  to  Ci¬ 
cero,  back  to  Aristotle,  back  to  Plato.  All  these  have  taught 
much  truth ;  let  us  covet  the  best  gifts  and  accept  them  wher¬ 
ever  they  are  offered:  in  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  in 
Germany,  in  France  and  Italy,  in  Great  Britain  and  Amer¬ 
ica.  Here  the  method  of  induction  with  criticism  may 
guide  us  in  the  selection — may  give  us  the  magnet  where¬ 
with  to  draw  out  the  genuine  steel  from  the  dross  mixture. 

“  Back  to  Kant,”  but  back  beyond  him  to  what  he  looked 
.  to,  or  should  have  looked  to,  and  by  which  his  views  and 
ours  are  to  be  tested,  to  the  facts  of  our  mental  nature.* 1 

1  I  should  be  sorry  to  find  our  young  American  thinkers  spending 
their  whole  time  and  strength  in  expounding  Kant  or  Hegel.  Depend 
upon  it,  the  German  philosophy  will  not  be  transplanted  into  America 
and  grow  healthily  till  there  is  a  change  to  suit  it  to  the  climate.  By 
all  means  let  us  welcome  the  German  philosophy  into  this  country,  as 
we  do  the  German  emigrants ;  hut  these  emigrants  when  they  come 
have  to  learn  our  language  and  accommodate  themselves  to  our  laws 
and  customs.  Let  us  subject  its  philosophy  to  a  like  process.  Let  it 
be  the  same  with  the  Scottish  philosophy  :  let  us  take  all  that  is  good 
in  it  and  nothing  else,  and  what  is  good  in  it  is  its  method. 

I  have  rather  been  advising  our  young  men  not  to  seek  to  transplant 
the  German  philosophy  entire  into  America.  But  as  little  do  I  wish 
them  to  transplant  the  Scottish  philosophy.  It  is  time  that  America 
had  a  philosophy  of  its  own.  It  is  now  getting  a  literature  of  its  own, 
a  poetry  of  its  own,  schools  of  painting  of  its  own  ;  let  it  also  have  a 


58  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


Of  the  existing  philosophies  the  German  is  at  this 
present  time  the  most  powerful.  If  the  others,  if  the 
Scottish,  the  English,  the  French,  are  to  regain  their  in¬ 
fluence,  they  will  have  to  strike  out  some  new  courses 
fitted  to  raise  enthusiasm,  and  hold  out  hope  of  discovery 
to  encourage  research.  They  may  study  the  dependence 
of  mind  on  body,  and  thereby  connect  their  inquiries 
with  the  science  of  the  day.  They  may  also  apply  psy¬ 
chology  to  the  art  of  education,  and  show  how  the  mind  is 
to  be  trained.  But  whatever  else  they  do,  they  must  take 
up  and  enter  into  the  spirit  and  life  of  those  great  ques¬ 
tions  which  have  been  discussed  in  philosophy  since  re¬ 
flective  thought  began.  It  is  because  they  have  done 
this,  that  the  philosophy  of  Kant  and  the  Germans  has 
been  found  so  attractive  to  inquiring  youths.  Let  us  notice 
and  ponder  the  grand  truths  which  have  thus  been  brought 
before  us,  but  let  it  be  to  give  a  clear  account  of  then- 
nature  and  separate  them  from  the  error  with  which  they 
have  been  combined.  Let  us  believe  and  acknowledge 


philosophy  of  its  own.  It  should  not  seek,  indeed,  to  he  independent 
of  European  thought.  The  people,  whether  they  will  or  not,  whether 
they  acknowledge  it  or  no,  are  evidently  the  descendants  of  Europeans, 
to  whom  they  owe  much.  They  have  come  from  various  countries, 
but  on  coming  here  they  take  a  character  of  their  own.  So  let  it  he 
with  our  philosophy.  It  may  he  a  Scoto-German- American  school. 
It  might  take  the  method  of  the  Scotch,  the  high  truths  of  the  Ger¬ 
man,  and  combine  them  by  the  practical  invention  of  the  Americans. 
But  no :  let  it  in  fact,  in  name  and  profession,  he  an  independent 
school.  As  becometh  the  country,  it  may  take,  not  a  monarchical  form 
under  one  sovereign,  like  the  European  systems,  let  it  rather  he  a  re¬ 
publican  institution,  with  separate  states  and  a  central  unity.  To 
accomplish  this,  let  it  not  he  contented  with  the  streams  which  have 
lost  their  coolness  from  the  long  course  pursued  and  become  polluted 
by  earthly  ingredients,  but  go  at  once  to  the  fountain,  the  mind  itself, 
which  is  as  fresh  as  it  ever  was,  and  as  open  to  us  as  it  was  to  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  to  Locke  and  Reid,  to  Kant  and  Hamilton. 


THE  TEUTH  IN  ALL  PHILOSOPHIES.  59 

with  Plato,  that  there  is  a  grand,  indeed  a  divine  Idea, 
formed  in  our  minds  after  the  image  of  God  and  pervading 
all  nature ;  but  let  that  idea  be  carefully  examined  and  its 
forms  exactly  determined ;  and  it  is  for  inductive  science, 
and  not  speculation,  to  ascertain  what  are  the  laws  and 
types  which  represent  it  in  nature.  We  should  hold  with 
Aristotle  that  there  are  formal  and  final  as  well  as  material 
and  efficient  causes  in  our  world ;  but  it  is  for  careful  observa¬ 
tion  to  find  out  the  nature  and  relation  of  these,  and  to  show 
how  matter  and  force  are  made  to  work  for  order  and  for 
special  ends.  We  may  be  as  sure  as  Anselm  and  Descartes, 
that  in  the  mind  there  is  the  germ  of  the  idea  of  the  infinite 
and  the  perfect ;  but  we  should  claim  the  right  to  show 
what  the  idea  is,  so  as  to  keep  men  from  drawing  ex¬ 
travagant  inferences  from  it.  Let  us  see  as  Leibnitz  did 
a  pre-established  harmony  in  nature ;  but  we  may  argue 
that  it  consists  not  in  things  acting  independently  of  each 
other,  but  in  their  being  made  to  act  on  and  with  each 
other.  We  can  not  err  in  attaching  as  much  importance 
to  experience  as  Locke  did ;  but  let  us  maintain  all  the 
while  that  observation  shows  us  principles  in  the  mind 
prior  to  all  experience.  We  should  be  grateful  to  the  Scot¬ 
tish  school  for  using  principles  of  common  sense  and  fun¬ 
damental  laws  of  belief ;  but  we  should  require  them  to 
show  how  these  are  related  to  experience.  We  may  allow 
to  Kant  his  forms,  his  categories,  and  his  ideas ;  but  let  us 
determine  their  nature  by  induction  when  it  may  be  fonnd 
that  they  do  not  superinduce  qualities  on  things,  but  simply 
enable  us  to  perceive  what  is  in  things.  I  believe  with 
Schelling  in  intuition  (Anschauung) ;  but  it  is  an  intuition 
looking  to  realities.  We  may  be  constrained  to  hold  with 
Hegel  that  there  is  an  absolute ;  and  yet  hold  firmly  that 
our  knowledge  is  after  all  finite,  and  insist  that  the  doctrine 
be  so  enunciated  that  it  does  not  lead  to  pantheism.  We 


60  A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

should  reject  a  sensationalism  which  derives  all  our  ideas 
from  the  senses,  and  a  materialism  which  develops  mind 
out  of  molecules ;  and  yet  be  very  anxious  that  the  physi¬ 
ology  of  the  nerves  and  brain  should  aid  us  in  finding  out 
the  way  in  which  the  powers  of  the  mind  operate.  I  turn 
away  with  detestation  from  the  pessimism  of  Schopenhauer 
and  Yon  Hartmann;  but  they  have  done  good  by  calling 
the  attention  of  academic  men  to  the  existence  of  evil,  to 
remove  which  is  an  end  worthy  of  the  labors  and  suffer¬ 
ings  of  the  Son  of  God.  We  may  believe  with  Herbert 
Spencer  that  there  is  a  vast  unknown  above,  beneath,  and 
around  us ;  but  we  may  rejoice  all  the  while  in  a  light 
shining  in  the  darkness.  Let  us  receive  with  gratitude  the 
whole  cabinet  of  gems  which  our  higher  poets  have  left  as 
a  rich  inheritance ;  but  before  they  can  constitute  a  philos¬ 
ophy  they  must  be  cut  and  set  by  a  skilful  hand ;  and  this 
must  be  done  as  carefully  as  it  is  with  diamonds,  and  all 
to  show  forth  more  fully  their  form  and  beauty. 


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